Varsha Vaswani vs Assistant Commissioner Of Income Tax Central Circle 7, Delhi

PER YOGESH KUMAR, U.S. JM:

The present appeal is filed by the Assessee against the order of Ld. Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals)-24, (‘Ld. CIT(A)’ for short), New Delhi dated 11/09/2025 for the Assessment Year 2014-15.

Brief facts of the case are that, pursuant to a search and seizure operation conducted under Section 132 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 ('Act' for short) on the entities of Elan Group on 29/05/2018, certain documents were seized and after analyzing those documents, A.O. found that certain documents are belong to/contained information pertaining to the Assessee. On the basis of the information, the case of the Assessee for the year under consideration i.e. Assessment Year 2014-15 was opened and after recording the satisfaction note by the A.O. of the search person on 31/05/2021 and by A.O. of other person on 29/06/2021, Assessment Order came to be passed on 23/03/2023 u/s 153C of the Act by computing the income of the Assessee at Rs. 21,84,892/- as against the returned of income of Rs. 2,35,860/-. Aggrieved by the assessment order dated 23/03/2023, Assessee preferred an Appeal before the Ld. CIT(A). The Ld. CIT(A) vide order dated 11/09/2025, dismissed the Appeal of the Assessee. As against the order of the Ld. CIT(A), Assessee preferred the present Appeal.

The Ld. Counsel for the Assessee submitted that the search was conducted on Elan Group on 29/05/2018 and the satisfaction of the Assessee (third person) was recorded on 29/06/2021.Thus, Assessment Year under consideration i.e. Assessment Year 2014-15 will not come under the purview of Assessment ofSection under153C of the Act, therefore, sought for setting aside the assessment order.

Per contra, the ld. Ld. Departmental Representative submitted that the assessment has been rightly framed against the Assessee as per law and addition has been made thereupon on merits which requires no interference at the hands of the Tribunal. Thus sought for dismissal of the Appeal.

We have heard both the parties and perused the material available on record. The present case the search of Elan Group has been carried out on 29/05/2018. The satisfaction has been recorded by the A.O. of the search person on 31/05/2021 and by A.O. of the Assessee/other person on 29/06/2021, which is Financial Year 2021-22 and Assessment Year 2022-23. As per Section 153C first proviso r.w. Section 153A(1) (b) of the Act, the six immediate preceding assessment years from the assessment year of handing over material i.e. on 29/06/2021 starts from Assessment Year 2022-23 to Assessment Year 2016-17. Therefore, the Assessment Year under consideration i.e. Assessment Year 2014-15 is beyond the purview of provision of Section 153C of the Act. Hence, the A.O. has no jurisdiction to frame the impugned assessment. Accordingly, finding merits in Ground No. 1 of the Assessee, we set aside the assessment order and also the impugned order of the Ld. CIT (A).

In the result, Appeal of the Assessee is allowed.