Service Of Assessment Notice On Son Is Valid

Notice under Section 148 of the Income-Tax Act 1961 for reopening the assessment has been served on my son instead of me. Can it be considered a valid notice on the basis of which I am bound to comply with it?

Section 282 of the Income-Tax Act 1961 deals with service of notice, generally. As far as individual assessees are concerned it provides that notice may be served on the person therein named either by post or as if it were a summons issued by a court under the Code of Civil Procedure 1908 (5 of 1908).

The service of valid notice is a condition precedent to the validity of the reassessment. There is a clear-cut distinction between jurisdiction and procedure and a defect in procedure will not normally amount to lack of jurisdiction (Commissioner of Income Tax vs T R Rajakumari (1974) 96 ITR 78 (Madras).

 

The notice prescribed in Section 148 of the 1961 Act for the purpose of initiating reassessment proceedings is not a mere procedural requirement but a condition precedent to the validity of any reassessment made. If no notice is issued or if the notice is shown to be invalid, the proceedings taken by the assessing officer will be illegal and void. Service of notice on the son of the queriest can be considered valid in the following circumstances:

n If the son is authorised to receive notices by the assessee on his behalf;

n If the person is not authorised to receive notice but the assessee acts on such notice. In the Mahendra Kumar Agrawalla vs Income-Tax Officer case((1976) 103 ITR 688 (Patna), although the notices under Section 148 were served on clerks who were not authorised to receive the notices, the assessees acted on those notices by making application for grant of time.

Relying on Bhanji Kanji