Section 147A — Assessing Officer for purposes of sections 148 and 148A

CHAPTER XIV — PROCEDURE FOR ASSESSMENT

Section 147A — Assessing Officer for purposes of sections 148 and 148A

Case Laws & Commentary · Income-tax Act, 1961 (as amended by the Finance Act, 2026) · bharattax.co Treatise

Status: Inserted by section 9 of the Finance Act, 2026 (No. 4 of 2026), deemed to have been inserted with effect from 1 April 2021. A declaratory provision on who may act as Assessing Officer for section 148 notices and the section 148A procedure. Its validity is under challenge.

FA 2026: New section, inserted retrospectively from 1 April 2021, the date from which the present reassessment scheme in sections 147 to 151A has applied.

A. SECTION COMMENTARY

The e-Assessment of Income Escaping Assessment Scheme, 2022, framed under section 151A, provided for reassessment notices to be issued through automated allocation in a faceless manner. In Hexaware Technologies Ltd. v. ACIT (Bombay High Court, 3 May 2024) and decisions following it, notices under section 148 issued by the jurisdictional Assessing Officer were held invalid on that ground; other High Courts held that the jurisdictional and faceless officers had concurrent jurisdiction.

Section 147A overrides that line of decisions. It applies "notwithstanding anything contained in any judgment, order or decree of any court or in section 151A or in any scheme framed thereunder" and declares that the Assessing Officer for sections 148 and 148A means, and is deemed always to have meant, an Assessing Officer other than the National Faceless Assessment Centre or an assessment unit under section 144B(3). The jurisdictional Assessing Officer is therefore the officer who conducts the section 148A procedure and issues the section 148 notice, for all notices from 1 April 2021. The section does not alter how the reassessment itself is then completed, which remains governed by sections 144B and 151A and the scheme.

B. STATUTORY POSITION (verbatim text)

Reproduced from section 9 of the Finance Act, 2026 as published in the Gazette.

147A. Notwithstanding anything contained in any judgment, order or decree of any court or in section 151A or in any scheme framed thereunder, for the removal of doubts, it is hereby clarified that the Assessing Officer for the purposes of sections 148 and 148A shall mean and shall always be deemed to have meant to be an Assessing Officer other than the National Faceless Assessment Centre or any assessment unit referred to in sub-section (3) of section 144B.

C. AUTHORITIES

1. The decision overridden

Hexaware Technologies Ltd. v. ACIT (Bombay High Court, 3 May 2024)

Held: Under the 2022 scheme notified under section 151A, a section 148 notice had to be issued by the faceless mechanism; a notice issued by the jurisdictional Assessing Officer was without jurisdiction.

Relevance: Section 147A reverses this result with retrospective effect.

2. Challenges to section 147A

Position: As reported in published digests, the Punjab and Haryana High Court (Jyoti Sareen v. Union of India, CWP No. 15791 of 2024, 10 September 2026) held section 147A unconstitutional and quashed a jurisdictional officer's section 148 notice for assessment year 2020-21, and the Andhra Pradesh High Court reached the same result in W.P. No. 28520 of 2023 and batch on 12 October 2026. The judgments themselves have not been reviewed for this page. The position in the Supreme Court is not settled.

Compiled for the bharattax.co Treatise on the Income-tax Act, 1961 (as amended by the Finance Act, 2026). Statutory text reproduced from the Finance Act, 2026 as published in the Gazette of India. Citations are stated as reported; High Court decisions reported only in digests are flagged as such. This material is for professional reference and is not legal advice.