JUDGMENT

S. Muralidhar, J. These are five appeals by the Revenue under Section 260A of the Income Tax Act 1961 ('Act') directed against a common order dated 13th May, 2016 passed by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (`ITAT') in ITA Nos. 2409 to 2412/Del/12 and 2437/Del/12 for the Assessment Years (`AYs') 2000-01 to 2004-05.

2. The main contention of the Revenue in these appeals is that the decision of the Division Bench (`DB') of this Court in Commissioner of Income Tax (Central-III) v. Kabul Chawla, (2016)380 ITR 573 (Del) (hereafter Kabul Chawla) as regards the assumption of jurisdiction under Section 153A of the Act requires reconsideration, particularly in light of a later decision of a co-ordinate Bench of this Court in Smt. Dayawanti Gupta v. CIT, (2016)390 ITR 496 (Del) (hereafter Dayawanti Gupta). The Revenue's submission is that the invocation of Section 153A of the Act to re-open concluded assessments of the AYs earlier to the year of search is justified even in the absence of incriminating material found during the search qua each such earlier AY. For reasons to follow, the Court does not agree with the above submissions of the Revenue.

3. Since there are typographic