Income Tax Act: SC Relegates Revenue To File Appropriate Review Plea Seeking Relief Regarding Waiver Of Limitation U/s. 150(2)

The Supreme Court while dealing with a miscellaneous application filed by the Principal Commissioner of Income Tax has relegated the Revenue to file an appropriate review application seeking relief with regard to the waiver of limitation under Section 150(2) of the Income Tax Act, 1961.

The two-Judge Bench of Justice M.R. Shah and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia observed, “… without further entering into the merits of the application and/or expressing anything on merits on the prayers sought in the present application, the present application is not entertained and we relegate the Revenue to file an appropriate review application seeking the reliefs which are sought in the present application and as and when such review application is filed the same be heard and decided and disposed of in the open court.”

The Bench said that as it had not entered into the merits of the application and relegated the Revenue to file an appropriate review application, the review application be decided and disposed of in accordance with law and on its own merits.

Advocate Raj Bahadur Yadav appeared for the appellant while Advocate Ambhoj Kumar Sinha appeared for the respondent.

In this case, a miscellaneous application was filed by the appellant seeking the following prayers:

• Clarification regarding waiver of limitation as stipulated in Section 150(2) to be read in respect of the date of issue of notice for reassessment under Section 148.

• Even though the appeals of the Revenue are dismissed in respect of assessments passed under 153A and 153C, in the absence of incriminating material found during the search, in respect of such income which was found to have escaped assessment other than through incriminating material, the assessing officers would be entitled to reassess such income in terms of Section 147/148 read with Section 150.

• The Assessing Officer, may if found necessary initiate fresh proceedings within 60 days from the date of disposal of the application following the procedure stipulated in Section 147-151 of the Act as is in force now.

The Supreme Court in the above context noted, “Having gone through the averments made in the application and the prayers, we are of the opinion that the prayers sought can be said to be in the form of review which requires detail consideration at length looking into the importance of the matter. Therefore, the present application in the form of clarification is not entertained and we relegate the Revenue to file an appropriate review application for the relief sought in the present application and as and when such review application is filed the same can be heard in the open court.”

Accordingly, the Court disposed of the plea.

Cause Title- Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, Central-3 v. Abhisar Buildwell P. Ltd.

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