IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that amendments to the Income Tax Act cannot retroactively invalidate applications filed before the effective date of the amendments, preserving the rights of assessees.

JUDGMENT :

Bhargav D. Karia, J.

1. Heard learned advocate Mr. Dhinal Shah, learned advocate Ms. Vaibhavi K. Parikh, learned advocate Mr. Jimi Patel for learned advocate Mr. Darshan Gandhi for the petitioners and learned Senior Standing Counsels Mr. Varun K. Patel and Mr. Karan Sanghani for the respondents.

2. Rule returnable forthwith. Learned advocates for the respective parties waive service of notice of rule for the respective respondents.

3. Having regard to the controversy in narrow compass, with the consent of learned advocates for the respective parties, these petitions are taken up for hearing.

4. As the issue arising in these petitions is similar, the same were heard analogously and are being disposed of by this common Judgment.

5. In all these petitions the petitioners have prayed for quashing and setting aside notice under Section 148 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (for short ‘the Act’) and the order under Section 245D(4) of the Act passed by the Interim Board of Settlement.

6. The brief facts of the each petitions are as under :

7. In this group of petitions for the Assessment Years which are referred to in the above table, the Interim Board for Settlement has held that the applications filed by the petitioners for settlement for the said Assessment Years, the petitioners were not eligible to file application for settlement as the petitioners have not filed application for settlement on or before 31.01.2021 for the relevant Assessment Years in view of the amendment in Section 245C of the Act by Finance Act, 2021 with effect from 01.02.2021.

8. It is the case of the petitioners that the petitioners are liable to file application for settlement on or before 31.03.2021 as the Finance Act, 2021 received the assent of the President on 01.04.201 and therefore till 31.03.2021, the Settlement Commission continued to operate and it cannot be said that the Finance Act, 2021 would come into effect with effect from 01.02.2021.

9. Learned advocates for the petitioners submitted that the issue with regard to the maintainability of the Settlement Applications filed prior to 31.03.2021 as well as notices issued prior to the said date under Section 148 or 153A of the Act would be maintainable before the Interim Board for Settlement, more particularly in view of the Circular No.299/22/2021-Dir (Inv.-III)/174 dated 28.09.2021 issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (for short ‘CBDT’) in exercise of powers under Section 119(2)(b) of the Act which reads as under :

“....3. In view of the above, the Board in exercise of its power under clause (b) of sub-section (2) of section 119 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (the Act), in order to avoid genuine hardship to assesses authorizes the Commissioner of Income-tax, posted as Secretary to the Settlement Commission prior to 01.02.2021, to admit an application for settlement on behalf of the Interim Board filed after 31.01.2021 which is the date mentioned in sub-section (5) of section 245C of the Act for filing such application, and before 30.09.2021 and treat such applications as valid and process them as "pending applications" as defined in clause (eb) of section 245A of the Act.

4. The above relaxation is available to the applications filed:-

(i) by the assesses who were eligible t