While rejecting the Assessee's plea of Section 153C proceedings being invalid as the satisfaction note did not bear DIN, the Kerala High Court noted that the satisfaction note is a document prepared by the AO which is kept in the file, and unless an Assessee demands the satisfaction note, it is not required to be provided to the Assessee.

A Single Judge Bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh observed that “The satisfaction note is a document prepared by the Assessing Authority which is kept in the file, and unless an assessee demands the satisfaction note, it is not required to be provided to the assessee. Therefore, there is no requirement to have a DIN number in the satisfaction note recorded by the Assessing Authority”.

Advocate Preetha S. Nair appeared for the Assessee while the Revenue was represented by Advocate Jose Joseph.

Briefly, the Assessee preferred the instant writ petition challenging Section 153C notices for AY 2015-16 to AY 2020-21 as without jurisdiction and against the law. The Assessee contended that the notice issued under Section 153C did not mention the satisfaction note recorded by AO of the searched person and also the satisfaction note supplied to the Assessee did not bear the DIN, thus, the entire proceedings are illegal.

After considering the submission, the Bench clarified that when the satisfaction notes have been provided to the petitioner, the communication bears DIN, and therefore it cannot be said that the impugned notices and assessment orders are without jurisdiction.

Finding that the letter issued for communicating the satisfaction note contained a DIN, the High Court dismissed the Assessee’s submission that the whole proceedings were invalid as the satisfaction note did not have DIN.

Cause Title: South Coast Spices Exports Pvt. Ltd v. PCIT and Ors. [Neutral Citation: 2023: KER: 63576]

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Kerala High CourtJustice Dinesh Kumar Singh

Pankaj Bajpai