Hemant Kumar Goel vs ITO, Ward 30 (1)

PER S.RIFAUR RAHMAN,AM:

The assessee has filed appeal against the order of the Learned Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals)/National Faceless Appeal Centre (NFAC), Delhi [“Ld. CIT(A)”, for short] dated 03.12.2025 for the Assessment Year 2015-16.

At the time of hearing, ld. AR of the assessee submitted that the case of the assessee is related to A Y 2015-16 and the matter in case of the assessee is duly covered by the decision of Hon'ble SC in case of Union of India vs. Rajeev Bansal, wherein at para 19(f) of the order it is mentioned that, "The revenue concedes that for the assessment year 2015-16, all notices issued on or after 1 April 2021 will have to be dropped as they will not fall for completion during the period prescribed under TOLA." He submitted that since the case of the assessee is related to AY 2015-16 and since the notice is issued on 28.07.2022 i.e. after 01.04.2021, the proceedings are invalid and the order passed by the Assessing Officer is liable to be quashed. In this regard, he submitted a table of the events which is as follows:

Accordingly, ld. AR pleaded to quash the reassessment proceedings in case of the assessee for AY 2015-16.

On the other hand, ld. DR of the Revenue did not controvert the submissions of the assessee, however relied on the orders of the authorities below.

Considered the rival submissions and material placed on record. The assessee has submitted that the notice issued u/s 148 of the Act dated 28.07.2022 for AY 2015-16 is barred by limitation and accordingly, the assessment order so framed u/s 147 of the Act and consequent demands deserves to be quashed. Further it is submitted that the matter is squarely covered by the judgement of the Hon’ble Apex Court in the case of Union of India & Ors. v. Rajeev Bansal in Civil Appeal No 8629 of 2024 reported in 469 ITR 46, wherein it is held that for the assessment year 2015-16, limitation period to issue notice u/s. 148 of the Act is upto 31.3.2022 and the Revenue through ASG itself conceded in the case of UOI vs. Rajeev Bansal that TOLA provisions are not applicable for AY 2015-16, therefore, all notices issued after 1.4.2021 under un-amended provisions will have to be dropped. We further observed that judgement of the Hon’ble Jurisdictional High Court of Delhi in the case of Pratishtha Garg v. ACIT, Central [2025] 171 taxmann.com 264 (Delhi) wherein also it has been held that the impugned order dated 19.07.2022 issued under Section 148(A)(d) of the Income Tax Act,1961 (hereafter the Act) as well as the notice dated 19.07.2022 issued under Section 148 of the Act in respect of AY 2015-16 are liable to be set aside.

Based on the above decisions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court and jurisdictional high court had clearly held that the notice issued u/s 148 of the Act beyond 31.03.2022 is barred by limitation and thus, following the principles of judicial discipline, we hereby quash the notice so issued u/s 148 of the Act dated 28.07.2022 in case of the assessee and also quash the assessment order so framed u/s 147 of the Act dated 23.05.2023 along with consequent demands being barred by limitation, void-ab-initio and bad in law.

Since we have already quashed the entire assessment order by allowing the legal ground so raised by the assessees, therefore, the other grounds of appeal so raised by the assessee are not being adjudicated and are kept open.

In the result, the appeal of the assessee is allowed as per above terms.