The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) Mumbai has quashed multiple reassessment proceedings initiated against infrastructure major J Kumar Infraprojects Ltd for assessment years 2016–17 to 2022–23, holding that the notices issued under Section 148 of the Income-tax Act were invalid due to procedural lapses.

The bench comprising Judicial Member Sandeep Gosain and Accountant Member Prabhash Shankar allowed the company’s additional grounds challenging the validity of the reassessment on two key counts — absence of a valid signature on the sanction obtained under Section 151, and issuance of the reassessment notice by the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer (JAO) instead of the Faceless Assessing Officer (FAO) as mandated under Section 151A read with CBDT Notification No. 18/2022.

The tribunal noted that the sanction under Section 151, prerequisite for issuing a notice under Section 148, was neither manually nor digitally signed by the prescribed authority. Relying on Allahabad High Court rulings in Vikas Gupta v. UOI and Daujee Abhushan Bhandar Pvt. Ltd. v. UOI, the ITAT held that the signing of such approval is a mandatory requirement, and an unsigned sanction cannot confer jurisdiction on the Assessing Officer.

The bench rejected the department’s reliance on the Chhattisgarh High Court’s Bharat Krishi Kendra decision — which upheld unsigned approvals if the authority’s name and designation were printed — pointing out that it was a single-judge ruling, while the decisions favouring the assessee were by division benches. The tribunal stressed that in the absence of a jurisdictional High Court ruling, the view favouring the taxpayer must prevail.

Consequently, the notice issued under Section 148 for AY 2016–17 was held “bad in law” and the corresponding reassessment order under Sections 143(3) read with 147 was quashed.

On the second issue, J Kumar Infraprojects argued that, as per CBDT Notification No. 18/2022, post-April 1, 2022, reassessment notices should be issued by FAOs under the faceless regime. The notice in its case was issued by the JAO instead. The assessee relied on Bombay High Court rulings in Hexaware Technologies Ltd. and Ganesh Nivrutti Jagtap, which had struck down reassessment notices issued by JAOs in similar circumstances.

While the Revenue maintained that search-related cases assigned to the Central Charge were excluded from the faceless scheme, and cited contrary rulings from other High Courts, the ITAT noted that there was no stay on the Bombay High Court judgments cited by the assessee.

Given that the present case fell under the jurisdiction of the Bombay High Court, the tribunal followed its rulings and held that the reassessment notice suffered from a jurisdictional defect.

Case Details

Case Title:  J Kumar Infraprojects Ltd. Versus DCIT

Case No.: ITA No. 4147/Mum/2024 

Date:  03.07.2025

Counsel For Appellant:  K Shivram Sr. Advocate & Shri Shashi Bekal 

Counsel For Respondent:  Neena Jeph, CIT DR

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