ORDER
1. This is a bunch of eleven matters which include five appeals of the assessee, three cross-appeals of the Revenue and three cross-objections of the assessee relating to asst. yrs. 1994-95, 1996-97,1997-98,1998-99 and 1999-2000 as has been clearly mentioned in the title. Most of the issues involved in the cases are identical and arise from common facts; therefore, for the sake of convenience and brevity, we proceed to decide them by a common order.
2. Briefly stated, the relevant facts are that the assessee is a medical practitioner and is a renowned child specialist. He was in Government service till October, 1991. After leaving Government service, he started his private medical practice and also runs a nursing home in Sriganganagar. The assessee filed his return of income for asst. yr. 1994-95 on 2nd April, 1996 by declaring income of Rs. 46,530. This return should have been filed by the assessee on or before 31st Aug., 1994. Therefore, the return was not accepted by the AO. In this case of this assessee following tax evasion petitions were received:
(a) TEP dt. 6th April, 1999 was forwarded by Jt. CIT vide letter No. 2228 dt. 2nd Nov., 1999;
(b) TEP dt. 2nd June, 1997 was forwarded by Jt. CIT vide letter No. 1062 dt. 1st Aug., 1999;
(c) TEP dt. 16th Oct., 1997 was forwarded by Jt. CIT vide letter No. 1026 dt. 4th Aug., 1999;
(d) TEP dt. 6th April, 1999 was forwarded by Jt. CIT vide letter No. 2317 dt. 19th Jan., 2000.
3. The AO got enquiries conducted through Inspector and gathered information in relation to these tax evasion petition, and on the basis of these enquiries and information so gathered, the AO sought approval of the Jt. CIT, Bikaner for initiating reassessment proceedings under Section 147 by issue of notice under Section 148. The assessee had filed return of income on 12th June, 2000 declaring same income i.e., Rs. 46,530 as returned on 2nd April, 196. Likewise, assessments for asst. yrs. 1996-97, 1997-98, 1998-99 and 1999-2000 were also reopened by issue of separate notices under Section 148 of the Act after recording separate reasons.
5. Before we proceed further it is necessary to narrate some more facts relating to these cases. The assessee had got an FIR registered against the then ITO Shri A.S. Nehra, due to which the relations between the assessee and the AO got strained. The assessee requested for the supply of reasons recorded for reassessment proceedings, but the AO did not provide a copy of reasons for all these years to the assessee despite written request having been in this regard. But, undeniably, the copies of reasons were not supplied to the assessee. All his requests were turned down.
6. One common ground taken in all the appeals by the assessee is that the AO did not supply the copies of reasons, which were recorded to initiate proceedings under Section 147/148 of the Act. Since this issue goes to very root of the matter, therefore, we decided to hear the parties on this issue before entering on to other grounds.
7. After hearing the rival submissions, it is established on record that the assessee demanded copies of reasons recorded for initiation of reassessment proceedings but the same were not supplied to the assessee, at all. Later on, during proceedings before the learned CIT(A) such copies were given to the assessee. This fact is very much evident from the records and has been fairly conceded by the learned Departmental Representative. The copies of reasons, if it so desired, are required to be given to the assessee as has been held in the case of GKN Driveshafts (India) Ltd. v. ITO (2003) 179 CTR (SC) 11 : (2003) 259 ITR 19 (SC). The Hon’ble Supreme Court has held that “when a notice under Section 148 is issued, the assessee must file the return and later, if the assessee so desired, may seek reasons for issuing notices. The AO is bound to furnish reasons within a reasonable time. It is necessary to note that only after filing the return of income in response to notice issued under Section 148, an assessee can ask for the copies of the reasons recorded for reopening the assessment”.
8. The Hon’ble jurisdictional High Court in the case of Hanuman Sahai Choudhary v. Union of India and Ors. (2004) 186 CTR (Raj) 715 has held that “unless the assessee’s objections are decided by a speaking order, there is no question of passing the final order in the matter of the assessment, therefore, the AO shall first decide the objections and thereafter pass the assessment order.”
9. For all these assessment years, the assessee made repeated requests for supply of reasons recorded for reopening of the assessment, but the same were not given and without providing the copies of reasons, reassessment orders were passed. When this position was confronted to the learned Departmental Representative, she fairly conceded the fact of non-supply of reasons even after being demanded by the assessee. She readily added that in these circumstances, all these appeals may be set aside to the file of the AO for passing the appropriate assessment orders.
10. Now, it is clearly established on record that the AO did not supply copies of reasons recorded for reassessment in all these assessment years and proceeded with framing the orders. Therefore, no question arose of deciding the objections which could be raised by the assessee against the reasons before passing the final orders. The Hon’ble apex Court in the above decision has fairly laid down the law with regard to supply of reasons when these are so desired by the assessee. The AO has utterly failed to supply the copies of reasons despite various requests made in writing. Since the AO is required to first dispose the objections against the reasons before proceeding to pass the final order and that too, by passing a speaking order, as to how and why the objections are not acceptable, the reassessments in all these cases are passed in utter violation of the above law laid down by Hon’ble Supreme Court as well as Hon’ble jurisdictional High Court. Therefore, we set aside the assessment orders framed under Section 147/143(3) of the Act for all assessment years under consideration and send them back to the file of the learned AO with a direction to frame the assessment orders, de novo, after supplying copies of reasons to the assessee and after seeking objections against the same. The AO shall also decide the assessee’s objections by passing a speaking order and thereafter, if it so required, he may proceed to frame the reassessment orders as per law. The AO should not repeat the same assessment orders and has to pass reasoned orders.
11. Consequently, in view of our above findings there is no need to decide other grounds raised. Therefore, we accept the appeals of the assessee and set aside all the assessment orders with above directions. The appeals of the Revenue as well as cross-objections of the assessee become infructuous. After passing of fresh reassessment orders, if any, the parties shall have the regular rights of appeals as per law.
12. In the result, the appeals of the assessee are allowed for statistical purposes and the appeals of the Revenue and the cross-objections of the assessee are dismissed having become infructuous.