Violation of principles of natural justice in not granting the petitioner enough opportunity to furnish an explanation in defense of the charge levelled against him.

JUDGMENT

[Physical Hearing/Hybrid Hearing (as per request)]

Rajiv Shakdher, J. (Oral)

1. Issue notice.

1.1. Mr Gaurav Gupta, learned senior standing counsel, accepts notice on behalf of the respondents/revenue.

2. In view of the directions that we propose to pass, Mr Gupta says that he does not wish to file a counter-affidavit in the matter and he will argue the matter based on the record, as is presently available with the court. Therefore, with the consent of the learned counsels for the parties, the writ petition is taken up for hearing and final disposal, at this stage itself.

3. This writ petition concerns Assessment Year (AY) 2018-19.

4. This writ petition is directed against the assessment order dated 03.03.2023 passed under Section 147, read with section 144B of the Income Tax Act, 1961 [in short, "Act"].

4.1. Besides this, challenge is also laid to the notice dated 17.03.2022 issued under Section 148A(b) and the order dated 31.03.2022 passed under Section 148A(d) of the Act.

4.2. In addition thereto, challenge is also laid to the consequential notice dated 31.03.2022 issued under Section 148 of the Act.

5. The principal allegation against the petitioner is that he has failed to disclose the entire sale consideration concerning the subject properties. The allegation levelled against the petitioner, as noted in the notice issued under Section 148A(b) of the Act, is captured in the following paragraphs of the annexure appended to the said notice. For the sake of convenience, the same are extracted hereafter:

"2. An information has been received from ADIT (Inv.), Jalandhar that during the action of Enforcement Directorate on Sh. Bhupinder, S/o Late Sh. Satnam Singh, R/o AdarshNgar, Jalandhar, a red colour diary was seized from the residential premise of Bhupinder Singh. The said diary was shared with department along with other documents related to violation of income Tax. During the in depth analysis of the said page, it was seen that against each transaction of Rs.70,50,000/- a payment of Rs.1,21,50,000/- has been mentioned as Kacha in said dairy. An amount of Rs.70,500/- has been mentioned as TDS.

3. Further, details of property having 50% stake of Smt. Gurjeet Kaur W/o Bhupinder Singh situated at 591, Model Town, Jalandhar, revealed that in the year 2017-18, following facts were revealed that are presented in tabulated form:

4. In this regard, profiling of Sh. Inderpal Singh, S/o Sh. Kuldeep Singh having PANABMPS7036B was done and following facts were revealed in relation to capital gain:

5. It is clear from the above that the full value of sale consideration that were shown at Rs.1,41,00,000/- which is as per registered deed of the property whereas the actual sale consideration of the property comes to Rs.2,42,50,000/- thus there is a shortfall of Rs.1,01,50,000/- which needs to be added back to the actual sale consideration and the capital gain has been calculated accordingly."

[Emphasis is ours]

6. Admittedly, the petitioner filed a reply qua the notice issued under Section 148A(b) of the Act, which is dated 25.03.2022.

7. The Assessing Officer (AO), thereafter, passed an order dated 31.03.2022 under Section 148A(d) of the Act. The essence of the AO's rationale is recorded in the following paragraphs of the said order:

"6. After due analysis of the relevant information and verification from the Department's database, it is observed that the income corresponding to the a