ITAT Holds A Taxpayer Must Be Granted Minimum 7-Day Time Limit to Respond A Section 148(b) Notice

The ITAT Bangalore invalidated the entire reassessment proceedings, holding that a taxpayer must be granted a minimum of 7 and a maximum of 30 days’ time limit to respond to a notice issued under Section 148A(b) of the Income Tax Act. However, the assessee was granted only 5 days of time to respond to the notice.

The dispute arose when the tax authorities reopened the case of Subbaro Anandarao (assessee) by issuing a notice under Section 148A(b) of the Income Tax Act. The assessee submitted that he was granted the prescribed time limit to respond to the notice. However, as per the provisions of the said section, a taxpayer is generally granted a minimum of 7 days and a maximum of 30 days to reply to the notice. However, in the present case, it was only granted a time limit of 5 days to respond to the notice.

Accordingly, the assessee claimed that the Section 148A(b) notice issued in his case to reopen assessment was invalid; consequently, it is liable to be set aside. In support of his case, the assessee also relied on an earlier ruling decision of the Hon’ble Jurisdictional High Court in Bangalore, Thulaseedas Srinath vs IT Officer and Doddagarudanahalli Vyavasaya Seva Bank Niyamitha vs Income Tax Officer.

When the tribunal examined the facts of the case, it noted that the assessee was indeed granted only 5 days to respond to the Section 148(b) notice. The tribunal held that in cases where a taxpayer is not granted a minimum time limit of 7 days to respond to a notice issued under Section 148A(b) of the Act, the entire reassessment becomes invalid. Consequently, the tribunal invalidated the entire reassessment proceedings and set aside the impugned Section 148(b) notice.