Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

WITH C.A. No. 10238/2024 C.A. No. 10239/2024 C.A. No. 10240/2024 13:18:27 IST Reason:

C.A. No. 8843-8844/2024 T.P.(C) No. 2187-2194/2024 T.P.(C) No. 2714-2723/2023 (Arising out of SLP(C) No. 23391/2024) (Diary No 24653/2023) C.A. No. 8836-8837/2024 (Arising out of SLP(C) No. 17283/2024) (Arising out of SLP(C) No. 17284/2024) (Arising out of SLP(C) No. 17286/2024) (Arising out of SLP(C) No. 17287/2024) And With JUDGMENT Dr Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, CJI Table of Contents A. Background ........................................................................................................35 i. Income Tax Act ...............................................................................................35 ii. TOLA ................................................................................................................39 iii. Finance Act 2021 ............................................................................................41 B. Issues..................................................................................................................50 C. Submissions ......................................................................................................51 D. Legal Background .............................................................................................55 i. Assessment as a quasi-judicial function ..................................................... 55 ii. Assessment as an issue of jurisdiction ....................................................... 59 iii. Principles of strict interpretation and workability ....................................... 63 iv. Principle of harmonious construction.......................................................... 66 E. Reading TOLA into the Income Tax Act ...........................................................70 i. First proviso to Section 149(1) of the new regime ...................................... 70 ii. TOLA can extend the time limit till 31 June 2021 ........................................ 75 a. Finance Act 2021 substituted the old regime ................................................ 75 b. Reading TOLA into Section 149 ....................................................................82 iii. Sanction of the specified authority ..............................................................86 F. Section 148 notices issued in June-September 2022..................................... 91 i. Scope of Article 142 .......................................................................................91 ii. The scope of Ashish Agarwal extended to all the reassessment notices issued between 1 April 2021 and 30 June 2021 under the old regime ...... 96 iii. Effect of the legal fiction ................................................................................99 a. Third proviso to Section 149 .......................................................................100 b. Interplay of Ashish Agarwal with TOLA ....................................................... 107 G. Conclusions ..................................................................................................... 110 PART A
“40. Although, Section 147 is part of a taxing statute, it imposes no charge on the subject but deals merely with the machinery of assessment and in interpreting a provision of that kind, the rule is that construction should be preferred which makes the machinery workable. Since the proceedings under Section 147 of the Act are for the benefit of the Revenue and not an assessee and are aimed at gathering the ‘escaped income’ of an assessee, the same cannot be allowed to be converted as ‘revisional’ or ‘review’ proceedings at the instance of the assessee, thereby making the machinery unworkable.” iv. Principle of harmonious construction

39. The legislature is presumed to enact a consistent and harmonious body of laws in deference to the rule of law. 90 In case of any apparent conflict within a provision or between two provisions of the same statute, the courts must read the provisions harmoniously. 91 The principle of harmonious construction Gursahai Saigal v. CIT, (1963) 48 ITR (SC) 1 [9] CIT v. Mahaliram Ramjidas, AIR 1940 PC 124;

88

Gursahai Saigal (supra) [13] (1992) 4 SCC 363 [40] MCD v. Shiv Shanker, (1971) 1 SCC 442 [5] Sultana Begum v. Prem Chand Jain, (1997) 1 SCC 373 [15] PART D requires courts to bring about a reconciliation between seemingly conflicting provisions to give effect to both. An interpretation which reduces one of the provisions to a “dead letter” is not a harmonious construction. The principle of harmonious construction also applies to reconcile two seemingly conflicting provisions of different statutes. 92