VINOD KUMAR , J. (ORAL)

1. The present writ petition has been filed seeking a writ of Certiorari or Mandamus praying for setting aside a notice dated 30.06.2025 issued under Section 148 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (in short ‘the Act’), order dated 30.06.2025 under Section 148A (3) of the Act, notice dated 13.06.2025 under Section 148A(1) of the Act and notice dated 29.03.2025 under Section 148A(1) of the Act issued by the respondent-Revenue for the Assessment Year (in short ‘A.Y.’) 2021-22.

2. The case of the petitioner is that he had filed Return of Income on 14.03.2022 declaring an income of Rs.8,53,950/- for the A.Y. 2021-22. On 29.03.2025, the respondent issued a notice under Section 148A (1) for the A.Y. 2021-22 to the petitioner stating that income chargeable to tax has escaped assessment “as per risk management strategy” and alleged that various dummy/shell entities/companies and bank accounts were associated with the petitioner. On 07.04.2025, a reply was filed by the petitioner to the aforesaid notices raising objection that ‘reason to believe’ relied upon by the respondent is a wrong ‘reason to believe’ and that prima-facie no relation of petitioner is established with the transactions carried through bank accounts and dummy/shell entities/companies as mentioned in Table-3 and Table-4 of the confidential report. It was argued that the respondent has wrongly presumed the sales and purchases by the petitioner to be unexplained. Accordingly, in the reply, he prayed for dropping of the proceedings.

3. It is submitted that on 21.05.2025, another notice under Section 129 of the Act was issued by the respondent to the petitioner informing him about change of Assessing Officer whereby final opportunity was afforded to the petitioner to submit reply ignoring the fact that the petitioner has already submitted a reply on 07.04.2025. As per the petitioner, on 23.05.2025 and 24.05.2025, the replies were filed by the petitioner to the comprehensive confidential report and notice dated 29.03.2025 raising objections along with the documents specifically stating that ‘reasons to believe’ as mentioned in this notice were wrong and unfounded, in as much as the bank certificates dated 16.04.2025 and 23.05.2025 are very clear that the bank account presumed by the respondent to be associated with the petitioner are neither linked nor in any manner associated with the petitioner and that dummy or shell entities were not reflected in any of the petitioner’s GST Returns and do not match with the GST Portal data pertaining to the petitioner. Learned Counsel for the petitioner submits that on 13.06.2025, the respondent again issued a notice under Section 148 A(1) of the Act for the A.Y. 2021-22 stating that his income chargeable to tax has escaped assessment without first withdrawing the notice dated 23.03.2025 and that respondent wrongly presumed that various bank accounts were operated by the petitioner. In response to this notice, the petitioner again sent a reply dated 16.06.2025 and a comprehensive reply dated 21.06.2025 specifically stating that this notice under Section 148A of the Act was issued without first withdrawing the notice dated 23.03.2025 under Section 148A of the Act. Thus, it was requested in the reply that the respondent is duty bound to first withdraw the notice dated 23.03.2025 and only after that the respondent can issue fresh notice under Section 148 of the Act.

4. On 30.06.2025, the respondent passed the impugned order under Section 148A (3) of the Act for the A.Y. 2021-22 and issued the impugned notice under Section 148 (1) of the Act. Learned Counsel for the petitioner argues that impugned notice suffers from fundamental infirmity i.e. two different sets of ‘reasons to believe’ have been furnished by way of notice dated 13.06.2025 and 29.03.2025 which violate the very essence of Section 147 and the settled judicial precedent rendering the reassessment proceedings bad in law. It is further submitted that GST is applic