The Delhi Bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has held that a notice issued under Section 148 of the Income Tax Act, 1961, without either a manual or digital signature is invalid in the eyes of law. 

Holding that the defect strikes at the very root of the reassessment proceedings, the bench of Madhumita Roy (Judicial Member) quashed the notice and consequently set aside the entire reassessment initiated against the taxpayer. 

The appeal arose from an order passed by the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals), Udaipur, which had upheld an assessment framed under Sections 147 read with 144 of the Income Tax Act for Assessment Year 2011-12. The reassessment had originally been completed by the Assessing Officer on December 20, 2018, following reopening of the assessment. 

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The Income Tax Department had reopened the assessment by issuing a notice under Section 148 dated March 30, 2018. The reopening was based on information regarding an alleged cash deposit of ₹20,12,200, which ultimately resulted in an addition of the same amount to the assessee’s income. The addition was subsequently affirmed by the first appellate authority. 

Before the Tribunal, the assessee challenged the very validity of the reassessment proceedings on a preliminary legal ground. It was argued that the notice issued under Section 148 was neither manually signed nor digitally signed, rendering it legally non-existent.

The assessee relied upon the Delhi ITAT’s earlier decision in Karan Anand v. ITO (ITA No. 3624/Del/2023), where the Tribunal had held that an unsigned notice under Section 148 is invalid and incapable of conferring jurisdiction upon the Assessing Officer. 

The Tribunal recorded that the Department’s representative could not dispute the factual position that the notice lacked both manual and digital signatures. Nor was any contrary judicial precedent produced to distinguish or override the earlier coordinate bench ruling relied upon by the assessee. 

The ITAT observed that the notice dated March 30, 2018 was admittedly unsigned. Since the reassessment proceedings were founded entirely on this defective notice, the Tribunal held that the notice itself was invalid in law.

The Tribunal concluded that an unsigned notice under Section 148 cannot confer valid jurisdiction upon the Assessing Officer to reopen an assessment. As a result, the reassessment proceedings initiated pursuant to such notice were held to be void ab initio.

Accordingly, the Tribunal quashed both the notice issued under Section 148 and the consequential reassessment proceedings. 

Allowing the appeal, the ITAT set aside the reassessment in its entirety, reiterating that the absence of a validly signed notice is a jurisdictional defect that vitiates the entire reassessment process.

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