* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI % Judgment reserved on: 15.12.2025 Judgment delivered on: 13.04.2026 Judgment uploaded on: As per Digital Signature~

+ W.P.(C) 2638/2023 ABHINAV JAIN .....Petitioner versus INCOME TAX OFFICER & ORS. .....Respondents Advocates who appeared in this case For the Petitioner : Mr. Rohit Jain and Mr. Samarth Chaudhari, Advocates.

For the Respondent : Mr. Vipul Agrawal, SSC, Ms. Sakshi Shairwal, JSC, Mr. Akshat Singh, JSC, Ms. Harshita Katru and Mr. Gorang Ranjan, Advocates. CORAM:

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE V. KAMESWAR RAO HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VINOD KUMAR

JUDGMENT

V. KAMESWAR RAO, J.

1. This petition has been filed with the following prayers:

“(a) issue a writ and/or order and/or direction in the nature of mandamus/certiorari or any other appropriate writ, order or direction quashing the impugned order dated 07.04.2022 passed by Respondent No.1 under section 148A(d) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (‘the Act’), and the consequent initiation of reassessment proceedings under section 147 vide notice dated 07.04.2022 issued by Respondent No.1 under section 148 of the Act for the assessment year 2018-19, and all proceedings/ actions consequent thereto including but not limited to the notice dated 20.02.2023 issues by Respondent No.3 under section 142(1) of the Act;

(b) stay the reassessment proceedings initiated under sections 147/148 vide the impugned notice dated 07.04.2022 issued under section 148 of the Act, and/or any other proceedings initiated there under or in consequence thereto, in the matter of the Petitioner for the assessment year 2018-19, during pendency of the present petition;

(c) grant ad-interim ex-parte stay in terms of prayer (b) above;

(d) call for the records of the case from the Respondents;”

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

2. At the outset, we may lay the facts as borne out of the petition. The petition relates to the Assessment Years (AY) 2018-19. For the AY under consideration, the petitioner, inter alia, maintained the following bank accounts:

(i) Savings Non-Resident External (‘NRE’) Account bearing SB– NRE No.015013110007312 with Bank of India, New Delhi (‘BOI’);

(ii) Savings Account No.0650000100137681 with Punjab National Bank, New Delhi (‘PNB’).

3. For the AY 2018-19, certain verification queries were generated on the insight portal of the Income Tax Department on account of the petitioner not filing his tax returns for AY 2018-19, in response to which, on 05.02.2019, the petitioner filed his e-response to the verification queries so raised.

4. The details of information purportedly pushed through the Insight portal and relied upon by respondent No.1 are as follows:-

“In this case information under NMS category was pushed through Insight portal that the assessee during the financial year 2017-18 relevant to AY 2018-19 has entered into following transactions as below:

2. The case has been selected on the basis of NMS category in line with Risk Management Strategy formulated by CBDT. As per records the assessee did not file his return of income for the A.Y. 2018-19 as required under the provisions of Income Tax Act, 1961. The above amount received towards foreign remittance, interest income and time deposits in bank is significant and despite this the assessment year. Looking at the above undisclosed income it is found that despite having taxable income, the assessee has not filed his return of income. As per record no scrutiny assessment has been made in this case for the relevant assessment year. Moreover, this piece of information falls in the category as explained in Explanation 1(i) to Section 148 and suggests that income of Rs.9,28,66,191/- chargeable to tax has escaped assessment. Therefore, it appears to be a fit case to issue notice u/s 148 for AY 2018-

19.”

5. It can be noted from the above that it was alleged that information under Non-filers Monitoring System (NMS) category was pushed through the insight portal demonstrating that during the financial year relevant to AY 2018-19, the petitioner had