A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court ruled a notice which has been filed under Section 148 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 would be provided to an unrelated email address that does not include the proper service of notice.
The impugned notice would have been made and provided to dispatch via electronic mail (e-mail) via the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer (JAO) using the Income Tax Business Application (ITBA) software. This is being made by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for the Department. The validity of the issuance of a notice served via the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer(JAO) was tested by the court, towards the dispatch of the notice. On 31st March 2021 JAO generated a notice. The Income Tax Business Application(ITBA) servers dispatched the above-mentioned notice dated 1st April 2021, or later.
The notices made have the time restrictions on 31st March 2021, according to the newly revised section 149(a) of the Act of 1961, and, as per law, needed to be filed on or before 31st March 2021.
The applicant, some of the mentioned notices were provided via the ITBA e-mail software system to irrelevant email addresses that do not relate to the applicant-taxpayer. The department could not be allowed to elaborate that there was the due dispatch of the notice. The notices shown in the e-filing portal of the taxpayer do not provide the taxpayer with a real-time alert as mentioned via Section 144B (6)(ii)(a) of the Income Tax Act, 1961.
But the respondents have been represented by the income tax department furnished via an affidavit that for the case the JAO has chosen to create the notice without DSC, the notice would get made in the uneditable PDF format on the ITBA portal. Self-generation, the ITBA software’s e-mail system is triggered and the e-mail having the specified Notice (without DSC) is sent to the e-mail address of the taxpayer and also uploaded on the E-filing portal, which is accessible by the taxpayer so for their viewing. ITBA e-mail system sent the email to the taxpayer exclusively when the taxpayer has the valid email id which is shown in the ITBA system.
The bench, Justice Manmohan, and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora have seen the case that the impugned notice furnished via respondent was not being provided on the applicant enrolled email id and was furnished to the unrelated email id. The applicant come to know that the impugned notice was not signed physically and not any Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) was added, via its E-filing portal.
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In the Delhi High Court, the petitions opposing the notices that were being sent to the irrelevant email addresses would get concluded with the coordinates of the JAOs to validate the date on which the notice was initially seen by the taxpayer on the e-filing portal and acknowledge that as the issuance date. When the same issuance date is revealed to be on or post to the date 1st April 2021 the notices would be counted as issued under Section 148A (b) of the Act of 1961.
