By the Court.—We have heard Sri S.K. Garg for the petitioner and Sri R.K. Upadhaya for the Income Tax Department.

2. The petitioner was assessed by an assessment order dated 29th January, 2004 (wrongly mentioned as 29th January, 2003) by the respondent No. 2 under Section 144 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the Act in short), for the assessment year 2001-02. A copy of the assessment order has been enclosed as Annexure III to this writ petition.

3. The petitioner is challenging a notice issued to him under Section 148 of the Act, a copy of which has been enclosed as Annexure VI to this writ petition. The main ground of challenge is that the notice under Section 148 dated 10.1.2007 and has been issued by the Income Tax Officer. According to the petitioner, this notice has been issued after the expiry of four years from the end of the relevant assessment year and, therefore, the said notice could not have been issued by the Income Tax Officer. It could have been issued by an assessing officer not below the rank of Joint Commissioner.

4. In support of the above proposition, reliance has been placed upon a decision of a Division Bench of this Court in the case of Dr. Shashi Kant Garg v. C.I.T., (2006) 285 I.T.R. 158. The relevant portion of the said decision is extracted below, with the crucial portion underlined by us in the extract :

"From a perusal of Section 151 of the Act the following propositions emerge :

(i) if an assessment has been made under sub-section (3) of Section 143 or Section 147 of the Act and four years have not expired from the end of the relevant assessment year, a notice under Section 148 of the Act has to be issued by the Assessing Officer who is not below the rank of Assistant Commissioner or Joint Commissioner but before issuing any such notice, the Joint Commissioner is to be satisfied on the reasons recorded by such Assessing Officer that it is a fit case for issue of such notice. Here "Joint Commissioner", who also include an Additional Commissioner, in view of the definition of the phrase "Joint Commissioner" as contained in Section 2(28C) of the Act. The satisfaction has to be necessarily recorded by the Additional Commissioner or the Joint Commissioner, as the case may be. However, if the Assessing Officer is the Additional Commissioner or the Joint Commissioner, then in that case, prior approval of any higher officer is not required in case he has recorded the reasons for issuing notice in view of the provisions of sub-sections (4) and (5) of Section 120 of the Act;

(ii) if, however, the period of four years has expired and the assessment order has been made under sub-section (3) of Section 143 or Section 147 of the Act, the notice is to be issued only after the satisfaction has been recorded by either the Chief Commissioner or the Commissioner on the reasons recorded by the Assessing Officer that it is a fit case for issue of such notice. Thus, the Assessing Officer not below the rank of the Assistant Commissioner can issue a notice but before issuing the notice, the satisfaction of the Commissioner or the Chief Commissioner of the Income Tax is necessarily to be obtained. This would be the position after April 1, 1988, in view of the omission of the words "Additional Commissioner" in Section 2(16) of the Act by the Direct Tax Laws (Amendment) Act, 1987; and

(iii) where an assessment has not been made under sub-section (3) of Section 143 or Section 147 of the Act and the period of four years from the end of the relevant assessment year had expired, notice under Section 148 of the Act can be issued only by an Officer of the rank of Joint Commissioner after being satisfied on the reasons recorded by the Assessing Officer that it is a fit case for issue of such notice. Here, the term "Joint Commissioner" is inter-changeable with the words "Additional Commissioner" in view of the definition of the term "Joint Commissioner", as given in Section 2(28C) of the Act."

5. For r