Assessment order passed against the dead person without bringing on record legal heirs is Void: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has quashed the assessment order passed against the dead person without bringing on record all his legal representatives is void.

The division bench of Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora has observed that the death of the assessee was duly communicated by his legal heirs. The ITR also duly disclosed that it was filed by the legal representative. However, due to a lack of knowledge of the facts on the record, the scrutiny proceedings were wrongfully conducted in the name of the deceased assessee without bringing all of his legal heirs to the record as required by law.

The petitioner is the son of the deceased assessee, the Late Virendra Kumar Bhatnagar, who died on March 10, 2018.

The petitioner stated that upon the demise of the assessee, he filed an e-application seeking registration as a legal representative of the deceased assessee in the records of the Income Tax Department. The said application was accepted, and the petitioner was allowed to use the deceased assessee's account on the E-portal to make necessary filings on behalf of the deceased assessee as the registered legal representative.

The petitioner filed the income tax return (ITR) of the deceased assessee for AY 2018–19 in his capacity as a legal representative. In the ITR, it was duly verified and declared that the ITR was being filed by the petitioner in his capacity as a representative of the deceased assessee.

The statutory notice under Section 143(2) was issued by the Assessing Officer for the assessment year for limited scrutiny. The notice was issued in the name of the deceased assessee. The AO concluded the aforesaid assessment proceedings and passed the consequential assessment order in the name of the deceased assessee, bearing his PAN, and assessing the total income.

The petitioner contended that the notice suffered from a fundamental jurisdictional error as it was issued in the name of a dead person and the scrutiny proceedings were proposed in the case of a dead person. The notice neither mentioned the name of the legal heirs nor the PAN number of the legal heirs. At the time of the notice, the AO took no steps to bring all of the deceased assessee's legal heirs on record.

The court allowed the petition and quashed the assessment order along with all consequential proceedings and notices.

Case Title: Vikram Bhatnagar Versus ACIT

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Del) 1093

Date: 09.11.2022

Counsel For Petitioner: Advocates Rohit Jain, Aniket D. Agrawal, Mansha Sharma

Counsel For Respondent: Sr. Standing Counsel Ajit Sharma with Advocate A. Renganath

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