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11. The Hon'ble Madias High Court in the case of Jayanthi Talkies Distributors v. C!T [1979] 120 ITR 576 has also held the same view and held that the ITO will have no jurisdiction to make an assessment under Section 147 unless the notice under Section 148 is validly issued to and served on the assessee.

12. With these decisions in the background, if we analyse the facts of the present case, we have no option but to hold that the notice issued in this case was invalid. Admittedly, the notice was issued in the name of Ganga Prasad Jaiswal on 28-3-1985 and Shri Ganga Ram Jaiswal had admittedly died on 20-3-1985. Secondly, the notice was served on Kesho Ram Munib, who had no authority to receive the notice. In this way, the very issue of notice in the name of a dead person was an invalid notice and, secondly, the very service of the said notice on Munib was invalid. Thirdly, the Munib had written on the very notice itself that Shri Ganga Ram had expired 8 days back and his legal heir was his widow Smt. Tara Devi. The notice was served by the Inspector and thus the knowledge of the said information now cannot be denied by the Department as it had been received and communicated to the Inspector who had gone to effect the service on 29-3-1985 itself, while there was still three days left to amend the mistake and issue a fresh notice on the legal heir within the limitation prescribed under the law. Despite this information, no action was taken by the Department and now the Revenue tries to take shelter under Section 292B. Section 292B does not protect the assessments which are void ab initio. It is an enabling provision just to condone the mistake, defect or omission in the return of income, assessment or notice or summons or other proceeding if they are in substance and effect in conformity with the law. The very wordings of the Section suggests that it has been introduced just to remove the technical difficulties that arose due to human error but it does not help the revenue in situations as that of the present case. Here the issue of the notice is a condition precedent and its proper service is equally important to bestow jurisdiction on the ITO to re-frame the assessment under Section 147 of the Income-tax Act, 1961. In absence of the proper and valid notice and in absence of proper service, the entire proceedings for reassessment and the assessment order framed thereafter, in our opinion, becomes void and invalid in the eyes of law. The various decisions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court and of Hon'ble Allahabad High Court, cited above and relied upon by the learned counsel for the assessee, in our opinion, apply with full force to the present case. Hence, taking all those decisions into consideration, we are of the opinion that the order passed by the learned CIT(A) was perfectly correct and does not call for any interference. The issues are decided accordingly.