Nitin Agarwal v. Income Tax Officer, Ward-46(1), Kolkata And Ors

OD –3 ORDER SHEET WPO/118/2024IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTACONSTITUTIONAL WRIT JURISDICTIONORIGINAL SIDE NITIN AGARWAL VS INCOME TAX OFFICER, WARD-46(1), KOLKATA AND ORS BEFORE: The Hon'ble JUSTICE MD. NIZAMUDDIN Date: 20[th] March, 2024. Appearance:Ms. Sutapa Roy Choudhury, Adv.Mr. Abhijat Das, Adv.Ms. Aratrika Roy, Adv.Mr. Anirban Chatterjee, Adv.…For the Petitioner Mr. Prithu Dudhoria, Adv.…for the respondents The Court: Heard learned advocates appearing for the parties. By this writ petition, petitioner has challenged the impugned order inoriginal dated 29[th] December, 2023 passed under Section 148A(d) of theIncome Tax Act, 1961 relating to assessment year 2019-20 and subsequentnotice under Section 148 of the Act. This is the second round of litigationaccording to the petitioner. Petitioner submits that while passing theaforesaid impugned order under Section 148A(d) of the Act, the assessingofficer has recorded that some of the documents which are relevant to theimpugned assessment proceeding were not produced by the petitioner.Petitioner submits that he should have been given an opportunity to produce documents indicating the impugned order which are alleged to havebeen not produced. This Court in exercise of Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction under Article226 of the Constitution of India cannot act as an assessing Authority anddecide which documents are relevant for the purpose of assessment and theassessing officer is the competent authority to decide which are thedocuments which has got some relevance for the purpose of assessment.Furthermore, this is not the case where impugned proceeding has beeninitiated by an authority having inherent lack of jurisdiction and that theimpugned order has been passed without giving any opportunity of personalhearing or that the impugned order has been passed contrary to any specificprovision of law. The documents indicated in the impugned order whichalleged to have been not produced by the petitioner, petitioner has stillscope to produce the same in course of further subsequent proceeding to thenotice under Section 148 of the Act and there is no bar on the part of theassessing officer to consider those documents if produced by the petitionerin course of subsequent proceeding before passing any final assessmentorder. Considering the facts and circumstances of the case and submissionsof the parties, this writ petition being WPO 118 of 2024 is disposed of bygranting liberty to the petitioner to produce the relevant documents as hasbeen indicated in the impugned order under Section 148A(d) of the Actwhich were alleged to have been not produced and if the petitioner filesthose documents in course of subsequent proceeding, the assessing officer shall consider the same in accordance with law before passing any finalassessment order under Section 147 of the Act. Needless to mention that the final assessment order will be passedstrictly in accordance with law. With these observations and directions, this writ petition standsdisposed of. TR/ (MD. NIZAMUDDIN, J.)