AO not applied his mind in respect of allegation of bogus purchase: High Court quashes the order passed by the AO u/s 148A(d)

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AO not applied his mind in respect of allegation of bogus purchase:  High Court quashes the order passed by the AO u/s 148A(d) 

 

Order passed U/s 148A(d) is also a matter of writ petition in several cases. The authorities are passing orders without even considering the submission filed by the Assessee.

 

The Hon’ble Gauhati High Court recently quashed the order passed by the AO u/s 148A(d) of the Income Tax Act, 1961.

 

The Hon’ble Court held that the AO has not applied his mind and conveniently converted the allegation from that of a bogus purchase to sale after considering the reply of the assessee.

 

The Hon’ble Court remanded the case to AO for passing appropriate order after considering reply of Assessee.

 

It was the observation in the interesting case before Gauhati HC as under:

 

Abhinav Mittal v. UOI & Ors.”
WP(C) No. 3067/2022

Short Overview of the case:

 

In this writ, Assessee-Individual was served with a notice under Section 148A(b) for AY 2018-19 on account of alleged bogus purchases with two parties.

HC sets aside the order under Section 148A(d) and directs the Revenue to pass an appropriate order by arriving at a satisfaction regarding acceptability/non-acceptability of the reply given by the Assessee on allegations of bogus purchase pursuant to show cause notice under Section 148A(b).

Assessee denied having made any such purchases and submitted that he entered into a sale transaction for the amount alleged to be bogus purchases with the same parties.

Revenue after having considered Assessee’s submission passed the order dated Mar 31, 2022 under Section 148A(d) against which the Assessee preferred the present writ petition.

HC observes, “A transaction of purchase and a transaction of sale are two different transactions in two opposite directions.” Further, remarks that if on Revenue’s allegation of bogus purchases, the reply of the Assessee was that no such purchases were made, but in fact it was a sale by the Assessee, then the Revenue should have applied its mind on Assessee’s reply.

HC Observes that Revenue conveniently converted the allegation made in the show cause notice from a bogus purchase to that of a sale after the reply of the Assessee while passing the order under Section 148A(d).

Thus, sets aside the order and remands the matter back to the Revenue while clarifying that no interference is made with the order for any other reason and that the Revenue shall proceed de novo from the stage of reply to show cause notice by the Assessee.

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