M/S Kaveri Infrastructure Pvt Ltd vs The Commissioner Of Income Tax-1 And ... on 15 February, 2023
Ltd.'s case (Supra) which
was on almost similar facts. In that case, the assessee had submitted return
for the year 2006-07 claiming deduction under Section 80-1A of the Act
accompanied by requisite audit report. The assessment proceedings were
completed after making usual formalities and subsequently notice under
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Neutral Citation No:=2023:PHHC:061080-DB
Civil Writ Petition No.4291 of 2016 (O&M)
Civil Writ Petition No.4387 of 2016 (O&M)
Civil Writ Petition No.4407 of 2016 and
Civil Writ Petition No.4395 of 2016 (O&M)
-18-
Neutral Citation No.2023:PHHC:061080-DB
Section 148 was issued as the assessing officer was of the opinion that the
assessee was a contractor and could not be called a developer of any
infrastructural facility and had wrongly claimed deduction under Section
80-1A. It was held by High Court of Gujarat that since all the material
regarding its activities had already been disclosed by the assessee and in
spite of such disclosure, it had been given benefit of exemption under
Section 80-1A of the Act by the assessing officer, therefore, such notice was
liable to be quashed, as the reasoning given by the assessing officer was
based on the same material on which the original assessments had been
framed. It is explicit from the record of the instant appeals that the assessing
officer in this case had re-opened assessments by mere change of opinion
with regard to the nature of contract between the assessee and Government
of Himachal Pradesh, the contents of which were disclosed by the petitioner
at the time of framing of original assessments for previous four consecutive
assessment years. Therefore, issuance of notices on the same material does
not meet the standards of "reason to believe" as it was only on a different
analysis which was being done to draw a conclusion that income of the
petitioner had escaped assessment, that these notices were issued though
based on the same documents which were already tendered and this could
not be permissible under the powers available to revenue under Sections
147 and 148 of the Act.