The main legal point established in the judgment is that the requirement of recording reasons in the transfer order itself is mandatory under the law, and non-communication of the reasons to the assessee is not saved by showing that the reasons exist in the file, although not communicated to the assessee.

VIJAY KUMAR GAURI SHANKER, J.

( 1 ) A registered partnership firm--with Pradeep Kumar Agarwal and Vijay Kumar Agarwal as its partners and Murlidhar Agrawal (father of these partners) and prashant Kumar Agrawal son of the aforesaid Vijay Kumar Agarwal have filed present writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. All the petitioners are closely related being father, son and grandson (hereinafter called as "the petitioner" ). The firm is engaged in sale of chemicals, namely, caustic soda, sodium hydro sulphate and maze starch, etc. , and petitioner No. 1 and other petitioners have been submitting their return at Kanpur and assessed by the competent authority under the Income-tax Act, 1961 (called "the Act" ). The commissioner of Income-tax-I, Kanpur, vide impugned order dated January 23, 2004 (annexure 3 to the writ petition), exercising powers under Section 127 (2) of the Act, transferred the assessment cases of the petitioners (particulars given in the schedule contained in the impugned order itself) from Kanpur to New Delhi.

( 2 ) BEING aggrieved the petitioners have filed the present writ petition claiming writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari to quash the impugned order of transfer dated January 23, 2004, and also a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus to restrain the Assistant commissioner of Income-tax, Central Circle-9, Range-4, New Delhi/ respondent No. 2 from proceeding with the case in pursuance of its notice under Section 153a of the Act dated March 1, 2004 (annexure 4 to the petition ).

( 3 ) INITIALLY, the said Commissioner of Income-tax-I, Kanpur, served notices dated January 9, 2004/annexure 1 to the writ petition upon the petitioners to submit explanation, filed collectively as annexure 1 to the writ petition.

( 4 ) THE relevant extract of the aforesaid notices dated January 9, 2004, for convenience is reproduced below : sub : Transfer of your record from Kanpur to New Delhi : a search and seizure operation under Section 132 (1) of the Income-tax Act was conducted on july 2, 2003 in the Shikhar Gutka group of cases. In connection with the centralisation of your case from the Additional Commissioner of income-tax, Range-2, Kanpur, to the Assistant Commissioner of Income-tax, CC-9, New Delhi. You are requested to attend before the learned Commissioner of Income-tax-I, Kanpur, along with your explanation, if any, on January 16, 2004 at 11. 30 a. m.

( 5 ) IN reply to the above notices petitioners filed before the Commissioner of Income-tax-I, kanpur, somewhat identical replies dated January 16, 2004 (filed collectively as annexure 2 to the writ petition), contending, inter alia, that search was conducted on July 2, 2003, at their business offices, factories and residences situate in Kanpur as well as their premises at Delhi, search was conducted at two factories at Kanpur in which two of the petitioners were the directors ; all business organisations were situated at Kanpur except Pradeep Kumar Agrawal who had established a factory in Delhi and who had temporarily shifted to Delhi; one of the petitioners, Muralidhar Agrawal, was 74 years old whose health did not permit him to travel here and there and it was "inconvenient" to the petitioners to go to Delhi every time for assessment proceedings which shall be also detrimental to their business activities in case their cases were transferred to Delhi.

( 6 ) THE Commissioner of Income-tax, however, did not find favour with the aforesaid explanation and passed the impugned order dated January 23, 2004, the relevant extract of which reads : in exercise of the powers conferred to Sub-section (2) of Section 127 of the Income-tax Act, 1961, and all other powers enabling me in this behalf, I, the Commissioner of Income-tax-I, kanpur, hereby transfer the cases, particulars of which are mentioned in columns 1 to 4 of the schedule appended below from the Assessing Officer mentioned in column 5 to the Assessing officer mentioned in c

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