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2017 (9) TMI 1035 - HC - Income TaxReopening of assessment - sufficiency of material available with the Assessing Officer to form a belief that income chargeable to tax had escaped assessment - bogus purchases - Held that:- When fresh material was unearthed by the department through the investigation wing who had inquired into the transactions of M/s. S.R. Sales Corporation neither the question of change of opinion nor the concept of full disclosure may have a bearing. If the purchases of the assessee from M/s. S.R. Sales Corporation were bogus, sales and the entries were in the nature of accommodation entries, merely because the assessee disclosed such entries in the return filed and also showed such purchases in the books of accounts would hardly be sufficient to advance the arguments of full and true disclosure. The question of sufficiency of material available with the Assessing Officer to form a belief that income chargeable to tax had escaped assessment must be seen in light of limited jurisdiction, review and the self restraint imposed by the courts at the threshold stage. In a writ petition, the court would be primarily concerned with the question whether the Assessing Officer had information enabling him to form a bonafide belief that income chargeable to tax had escaped assessment. The court would not evaluate the evidence at that stage nor is the Assessing Officer expected to demonstrate with certainty that the addition will certainly be sustained in the reassessment proceedings. What is required at this stage to enable the Assessing Officer to issue the notice for reopening the assessment is the tangible material on record upon consideration of which he can form a reasonable belief that income chargeable to tax had escaped assessment. Such belief has to be one which is formed bona fide upon perusal of the materials at his command and unless it can be stated that the formation of the belief is perverse in the sense no reasonable person could on the available material on record form such a belief, the court would not interfere with the notice for reopening. - Petition dismissed.
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