The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s judgment striking down Section 147A of the Income Tax Act, 1961, which had been declared unconstitutional by the High Court earlier this month. The matter was heard by Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice K. Vinod Chandran.
The High Court, in a judgment delivered on September 10 by Justice Deepak Sibal and Justice Rupinderjit Chahal, had struck down Section 147A, holding that the provision retrospectively introduced by Parliament failed to cure the defect identified in earlier judicial decisions concerning the jurisdiction of Jurisdictional Assessing Officers (JAOs) to issue reassessment notices under Section 148.
Section 147A was introduced through the Finance Act, 2026 with retrospective effect from April 1, 2021. It provided:
“
Assessing Officer for purposes of sections 148 and 148A.
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.]