Post-amendment provisions of the Income Tax Act must apply exclusively; reassessment notices issued after April 1, 2021 under prior statutes are invalid and unauthorized.

1. This writ petition, along with other writ petitions listed today, have been filed by various assessees to challenge the initiation of assessment proceedings under S.148 of the Income - tax Act, 1961 (the Act) for different assessment years. All notices in these petitions for initiation of assessment proceedings have been issued after April 1, 2021.

2. Since substantial questions of law were involved, interim protection has been granted. The Revenue has also filed reply in many petitions and many petitioners have also filed rejoinder. Since the issues were identical, we did not insist on the Revenue filing a reply in each of the petitions.

3. The cause of action of dispute arising in all these writ petitions purely being legal, i. e., on the validity of the assessment proceedings initiated against the assessees after April 1, 2021 under the provisions of the Act, as it existed before April 1, 2021, read with the Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation and Amendment of Certain Provisions) Act, 2020 (the Relaxation Act) and the notifications issued thereunder, the peculiar facts or pleadings of each case, in our view, are not material to the adjudication of the issues involved.

4. We have heard the counsel led by Mr. Mistri, Mr. Pardiwalla, Mr. Andhyarujina and Mr. Chatterji for the petitioners and Mr. Anil Singh, learned Additional Solicitor General of India for the Revenue.

5. Before we took up this matter, various High Courts have considered identical issue and except a single judge of the Chhattisgarh High Court in Palak Khatuja v. Union of India 2021 (438) ITR 622 (Chhattisgarh), all other courts have held that the notices, as issued by the respondents under S.148 of the Act post April 1, 2021, are bad in law. The other courts, which have considered this issue, are the High Court of Allahabad (Division Bench) in Ashok Kumar Agarwal v. Union of India (2021) 439 ITR 1 (All) ; 2021 (131) taxmann.com 22 (All), the High Court of Delhi (Division Bench) in Mon Mohan Kohli v. Asst. CIT 2022 (441) ITR 207 (Delhi) ; 2021 (133) taxmann.com 166 (Delhi) the High Court of Rajasthan (single judge) in Bpip Infra (P.) Ltd. v. ITO 2022 (440) ITR 300 (Raj) ; 2021 (133) taxmann.com 48 (Raj) and the High Court of Calcutta in Bagaria Properties and Investments Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India (2022) 441 ITR 359 (Cal) ; W. P. O. No. 244 of 2021 dated January 17, 2022 and the Division Bench of the Rajasthan High Court in Sudesh Taneja v. ITO 2022 (442) ITR 289 (Raj) ; D. B. Civil Writ Petition No. 969 of 2022 pronounced on January 27, 2022 and the High Court of Madras (Division Bench) in Vellore Institute of Technology v. CBDT 2022 (442) ITR 233 (Mad) ; Writ Petition No. 15019 of 2021 dated February 4, 2022.

6. The provisions for reassessment to reopen the assessment under certain circumstances was amended by the Finance Act, 2021 with effect from April 1, 2021. Prior thereto, under S.147 of the Act, the Assessing Officer, if he had reason to believe that any income chargeable to tax had escaped assessment for any assessment year, he could, subject to the provisions of S.148 to 153 of the Act, assess or reassess such income and also any other income chargeable to tax which had escaped assessment. As per S.148 of the Act, before making such assessment or reassessment under S.147 of the Act, the Assessing Officer had to serve a notice on the assessee requiring him to furnish the return of his income. Sub-section (2) of S.148 provided that the Assessing Officer shall, before issuing any notice, record his reasons for doing so.

7. As per sub-section (1) of S.149 read with S.147 of the Act, if the assessment has been completed under S.143