Bishwanath Seksaria v. Assistant Commissioner Of Income Tax, Circle 32, Kolkata Andors

ORDER SHEETWPO/883/2023IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTACONSTITUTIONAL WRIT JURISDICTIONORIGINAL SIDE BISHWANATH SEKSARIA VS ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX, CIRCLE 32, KOLKATA ANDORS. BEFORE: The Hon'ble JUSTICE MD. NIZAMUDDIN Date: 1[st] May, 2023. Appearance:Mr. Saurabh Bagaria, Adv.Mr. Saumya Kejriwal, Adv.Ms.Ananya Rath, Adv.Mr. Gauri Shankar Gupta, Adv.…For the PetitionerMr. Soumen Bhattacharjee, Adv.…For the Respondents The Court : Heard learned advocates appearing for the parties.By this writ petition, petitioner has challenged the impugned orderunder Section 148A(d) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, dated 11[th] April, 2023relating to assessment year 2019-20 on the ground of violation of principleof natural justice by depriving the petitioner the materials and informationupon which the assessing officer has relied and which was made available tothe assessing officer through insights portal and the case of the petitioner isthat in spite of specifically asking for the said materials by the petitionerneither the same was made available to the petitioner nor the assessingofficer has disclosed in his impugned order under Section 148A(d) of the Actas to why the same could not be made available to the assessee petitioner. Itis the case of the petitioner that the materials and information upon whichthe assessing officer has passed the impugned order since could not bemade available to the petitioner it could not give proper and effectiveresponse to the notice under Section 148A(d) of the Act. It is the basic principles of natural justice that any authority using any material againsta person and passing an order causing prejudice to the interest to thatperson he must provide or supply the said material/information to theperson against whom the adverse order is going to be passed which has notbeen done in this case. Now, the fact remains that though before passing theimpugned order under Section 148A(d) of the Act the materials which wereavailable to the assessing officer has been disclosed in the order underSection 148A(d) of the Act, the same should not be supplied again and nowit should be treated as an information to the petitioner. Considering the facts and circumstances of this case and submissionsof the parties and taking into consideration the principles of natural justice,the aforesaid impugned order under Section 148A(d) of the Act and allsubsequent proceedings are set aside and the matter is remanded back tothe assessing officer to pass a fresh order after receiving additional responseto the notice under Section 148A(b) of the Act which is to be filed by thepetitioner within 10 days from date and such fresh order is to be passed bythe assessing officer after giving opportunity of hearing to the petitioner orits authorised representative and by considering and discussing theadditional response to be filed by the petitioner within the time stipulatedherein and in case of default in filing additional response, the impugnedorder under Section 148A(d) would automatically stand revived. With these observations and directions, this writ petition being WPO883 of 2023 stands disposed of. (MD. NIZAMUDDIN, J.)