Assessment Quashed as Blank Notice on Portal Violates Section 142(1) Issuance and Service Rules.

By | November 10, 2025
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Assessment Quashed as Blank Notice on Portal Violates Section 142(1) Issuance and Service Rules.

Issue

Whether an assessment order is legally valid if the preceding statutory notice under Section 142(1) is a blank form uploaded to the tax portal—lacking “From,” “To,” “Date,” and “Subject” details—and is not validly served on the assessee.

Facts

  • The assessee challenged the validity of the assessment order, arguing it was void ab initio (from the beginning).
  • The core legal ground was that the mandatory jurisdictional notice under Section 142(1) of the Income-tax Act was never validly issued or served.
  • As evidence, the assessee produced a screenshot from the official income tax portal.
  • This screenshot showed that the purported Section 142(1) notice was a blank document, with the “From,” “To,” “Date,” and “Subject” fields all being empty.
  • The assessee’s counsel argued that this was not a valid “issuance” of a notice, let alone a valid “service.”
  • The Ld. Senior DR, representing the Revenue, was unable to produce any evidence from the record to counter this fact or to prove that a proper notice had been served.

Decision

  • The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) ruled decisively in favour of the assessee.
  • It held that the blank notice on the portal, as evidenced by the screenshot, “can be construed that such notice u/s. 142(1) of the Act has not been issued at all, leaving apart serving of the same to the assessee.”
  • The Tribunal found that the non-issuance and non-service of this mandatory statutory notice constituted a fundamental jurisdictional defect.
  • The resulting assessment order was held to be arbitrary, bad in law, and void ab initio.
  • The ITAT quashed the assessment order in its entirety. As the legal ground was decided in the assessee’s favor, the grounds on the merits of the additions were rendered academic.

Key Takeaways

  • Issuance vs. Service: This case highlights that a notice must first be validly issued (i.e., be a complete, non-blank document) before the question of its service even arises. A blank form on a portal is not a validly issued notice.
  • Non-Issuance is a Fatal Defect: The failure to issue a proper, non-blank jurisdictional notice (like under Section 142(1)) is a fatal flaw, not a curable technical defect.
  • Burden of Proof on Revenue: The onus is on the Revenue to prove that a mandatory notice was validly issued and served. Their inability to produce any such evidence from their records was fatal to their case.
  • Natural Justice Violation: An assessment order passed without a valid preceding notice is a fundamental violation of the principles of natural justice, as the assessee is denied the opportunity to respond to the inquiry.

IN THE INCOME TAX APPELLATE TRIBUNAL

RAIPUR BENCH “SMC”, RAIPUR

ITA No.135/RPR/2025

Assessment Year : 2017-18

Maa Sharda Corporation vS The Income Tax Officer,

Date of Pronouncement : 21.07.2025