NEW DELHI/CHANDIGARH, SEPT 18: The Supreme Court has stayed the Punjab and Haryana High Court judgment that declared Section 147A of the Income Tax Act unconstitutional. Hearing a special leave petition filed by the Union government, a bench comprising Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice K. Vinod Chandran issued the interim order while placing a condition that ongoing reassessment proceedings across the country shall not move forward until the matter is finally decided.
The underlying legal controversy centers on whether reassessment notices under Section 148 can be issued directly by a taxpayer’s local Jurisdictional Assessing Officer or must go through the centralized Faceless Assessing Officer mechanism under the National Faceless Assessment Centre. Parliament introduced Section 147A with retrospective effect to clarify the authority of local assessing officers, but the High Court struck down the amendment, holding that Parliament could not retrospectively override prior judicial decisions without altering the core statutory framework.
Senior legal representatives appearing for the Union government urged the apex court to intervene, maintaining that the High Court ruling had created an operational vacuum regarding tax reassessment procedures. The apex court has scheduled the matter for a final hearing on December 3 to deliver an authoritative resolution on the jurisdictional conflict.
