The Honourable Supreme Court, in its landmark ruling in the case of GKN Drivehafts had laid down the procedural law relating to challenging re-assessments initiated under section 148. One of the observations of the Honourable Court were to the effect that when a Taxpayer requests for a copy of the reasons recorded to initiate the proceeding, the assessing officer has to respond to that request and furnish the same within “a reasonable time”.

What constitutes “a reasonable time” was left to the discretion of the officer with the result that in many instances, the reasons were supplied quite late in the day, and the proceedings were rushed through just before they became barred by time-limitation.

Coming across one such instance recently, the Gujarat High Court (in Sahakari Khand Udyog Mandal’s case) laid down the following time-lines for a reassessment proceeding-

•  Assessing officer to supply the reasons recorded for issuing the re-assessment notice within 30 days of filing of the Return of income by the Taxpayer – without waiting for the Taxpayer to demand such reasons
• Within 60 days of receipt of the reasons, the Taxpayer to file his objections, if he so desires
• The assessing officer to dispose of the objections within four months from the date of receipt of the objections filed by the Taxpayer

The above time-line should however be considered only as “indicative” as the High Court  went on to add that the procedure as laid down by the Supreme Court in GKN Driveshafts’s case would have to be followed, even when the above time-lines are not followed.

Further, being a decision of a High Court, the operation of the ruling would be restricted to the State of Gujarat and binding only on officers within that State. However, the directions would sure have a persuasive value even outside the State and Taxpayers could do no harm to their case by bringing the ruling to the notice of their jurisdictional assessing officer, when faced with delays in their own case.