High Court Of Delhi
JAGDISH PERSHAD GUPTA - Appellant
Versus
JT.COMMISSIONER OF INCOME-TAX - Respondent
W.P.(C) : 9521 of 2005
Decided On : 07/07/2005
( 1 ) IN the present writ petition, the petitioner prays for quashing of the impugned notice dated 20. 05. 2004 in relation to the assessment years 1998-99, 1999-2000, 2000-01 and 2002-03 issued by the Income-Tax authorities under Section 148 of the Income Tax Act and also prays for awarding of compensation and costs for the inconvenience and harassment caused to the petitioner as a result of issuance of notice and proceedings taken up by the authorities.
( 2 ) AT the very outset, we may notice that petitioner had earlier filed a writ petition being WP (C) No. 5562/2005 which was disposed of by a Division bench of this court while passing the following direction:-
"we are not impressed with the contention. The order of assessment was passed by the AO after duly considering the objections filed by the assessee in response to the notice u/s 147 of the Act. All the objections raised in this writ petition can conveniently be raised before the Commissioner of Income Tax Appeals by the assessee by filing an statutory appeal available to him under the provisions of the Act. Without commenting upon the merits of he order and the contentions raised by the petitioner before us in relation thereto, we dispose of this writ petition with liberty to the petitioner to file an appeal in accordance with law. The petitioner would be at liberty to take up all the contentions raised in this writ petition. Dismissed as withdrawn. Liberty as prayed, granted. "
( 3 ) IN response to notice issued by the respondents under Section 148 of the Act, the petitioner filed detailed objections/reply on 19. 05. 2005 copy of which is annexed to the writ petition as Annexure-P3. In this reply, the petitioner has taken detailed objections on merits as well as relating to the legal aspect of the very issuance of notice in question. No order has been passed by the respondents as yet disposing of the objections of the petitioner as the petitioner filed the present writ petition on 25th May, 2005 not even a week later than the filing of the objections before the competent authority.
( 4 ) THE learned counsel appearing for the petitioner while relying upon the judgments of this court in Delhi Tourism and Transport Development corpn. Ltd. v. Assistant Commissioner of Income-tax, (2004) 141 taxman 361 (Delhi) and Sita World Travel (India) Ltd. v. Commissioner of Income-tax, (2004) 140 TAXMAN 381 (Delhi) : (2005) 274 ITR 186 (Delhi) contended that it is not obligatory upon the part of the petitioner to await the passing of the order disposing of the objections/reply filed by the petitioner in response to notice under Section 148 of the Act and as there is apparent illegality in issuance of the said notice and the respondents are trying to harass the petitioner, the petitioner can rightly invoke the jurisdiction of this court under Article"226 of the Constitution of india.
( 5 ) ON the other hand, the learned counsel appearing for the revenue while relying upon the judgments in G. K. N. Driveshafts (India) Ltd. v. Income-Tax Officer and others, (2002) Vol. 257 ITR 702 (Delhi), GKN driveshafts (India) Ltd. , (2003) Vol. 259 ITR 19 (SO and GKN driveshafts (India) Ltd. v. Income Tax Officer and Ors. , (2003) 179 CTR (Del.) 13, contended that the present writ petition is an abuse of the process of law. The petitioner is obliged to wait for the disposal of his objections by the competent authority on merits. The order of assessment would be passed upon reassessment and petitioner can also avail of the statutory remedy of appeal available to him. There is no patent error or illegality in the order passed by the authorities in issuing the notice under Section 148 which has been issued upon due application to mind for good reasons and has been passed with the approval of Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax, circle-22 (l), New Delhi. The petitioner had filed a return showing loss of 1,37,36,350/- on 31st August, 1995 for the assessment year 1995-96. Notice to the a
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