9911796707
TMI Blog2025 (1) TMI 1052X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... registered with Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as a foreign portfolio investor. The assessee filed the return of income for AY 2018-19 declaring a total income of Rs. 47,42,370/-. The AO received information that the assessee is the beneficiary of bogus Long Term Capital Gains (LTCG) in scrip M/s Kushal Ltd. based on a search conducted under section 132 carried out in the case of Kushal Group, Ahmadabad. The AO noticed that the assessee has declared LTCG which included the sale of scrip M/s Kushal Ltd. The AO called on the assessee to furnish various details pertaining to the impugned transactions. After perusal of the details furnished by the assessee, the AO treated the Capital Gain on one of the scrips M/s Kushal Ltd. has ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ovisions of section 151(ii) whereas the approval has been obtained from the Commissioner of Income Tax (International Tax) (in short ''CIT(IT)". Therefore, the ld. AR submitted that the order passed under section 148(d) and the notice under section 148 is not valid and liable to be quashed. 5. The ld. DR presented arguments based on the written submissions as extracted - "1. In this case, notice u/s 148A(b) was issued to the Assessee on 22.03.2022 and the Assessee was given time till 31.03.2022 to reply to the notice. Assessee's reply was considered and order u/s 148A(d) was passed on 04.04.2022. Notice u/s 148 was also issued on 04.04.2022. 2. Specified authority for the purposes of section 148 and section 148A has been pr ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n of any court, shall be excluded: 4. In the present case, the time allowed to the Assessee as per SCN issued u/s 148A(b) is to be excluded while computing the period of limitation. Therefore, the time allowed to the Assessee, from 22.03.2022 to 31.03.2022 (9 days) was excluded. This meant that notice u/s 148 could have been issued up to 09.04.2022. The notice u/s 148 in this case was issued on 04.04.2022, which was well within the period of 3 years, making CIT the Specified Authority as per section 151 of the Act." 6. The ld. AR to counter the above submissions argued that the 5th proviso to section 149 which gives the additional time to the AO during which section 148A is stayed by the order of the Court was inserted from 01.04.2023 an ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... by the authority as specified in section 151(i) of the Act. The assessee is contending that the 5th proviso to section 149 under which the revenue is taking cover is inserted w.e.f. 01.04.2023 and therefore not applicable to assessee's case. In this regard, we notice that the Hon'ble Bombay High Court iIn the case of Vodafone Idea Ltd (supra) has held that - "1. Petitioner is impugning a notice dated 19th March 2022 issued under Section 148A(b) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 ("the Act"), the order passed under Section 148A(d) of the Act and the notice both dated 7th April 2022 issued under Section 148 of the Act. One of the grounds raised is that the sanction to pass the order under Section 148A(d) of the Act and issuance of notice u ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... er section 148A(d) and 148 of the Act are hereby quashed and set aside." 8. Similar view is held by the jurisdictional High Court also in other cases as listed herein above. In the decision of the Vodafone Idea (supra), the Hon'ble High Court has given a specific finding that the proviso to section 151 extending the time limit as per the third, fourth or fifth proviso to section 149 is not applicable for AY 2018-19 as the same is inserted only w.e.f. 01.04.2023. When we apply the said ratio to assessee's case, in our considered view, the claim of the revenue that the period of 3 years expires only on 09.04.2022 is not correct and that revenue cannot take shelter under the proviso to section 151 which came into effect only from 01.0 ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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