MEGHALAYA HIGH COURT: MINIMUM SEVEN DAYS’ TIME BE GIVEN TO THE ASSESSEE TO RESPOND TO THE REASSESSMENT NOTICE

Meghalaya High Court, the bench comprising of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice W. Diengdoh observed and held in the present case that the assessee should be given a minimum 7 days’ time to the reassessment notice.

A notice under section 148 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 is challenged by the petitioner/assessee on the grounds that under Section 148A of the Income Tax Act, 1961., the notice has been issued without following the mandatory procedure.

It was submitted by the petitioner that the AO ought to have afforded the assessee seven days’ time to respond. It was observed that a notice was issued to an email ID that was used for filing the return for the assessment year 2017-2018.

It was submitted by the assessee that the notice pertains to the assessment year 2018-2019 and till the time the email id of the assessee was changed. Further, it was stated that the notice was physically delivered at the address of the assessee on March 30, 2022 and even before the reply could be issued as the reassessment notice was issued by recording that the assessee had not responded to the previous notice.

The Court observed and stated that the assessee will have seven days from today to respond to the initial notice dated March 24, 2022 and the appropriate authority needs to consider such responses before passing any order or taking any further steps, whether under Section 148 of the Act or otherwise.

Sr. Advocates Abhratosh Mazumdar and Kaushik Goswami, appeared for the petitioner.