India: Retroactive amendment authorizing jurisdictional assessing officers to issue reassessment notices is unconstitutional (High Court decision)
Reassessment notices must be issued via randomized automated allocation.
The Andhra Pradesh High Court held that section 147A, which was introduced by Finance Act, 2026, with retroactive effect from April 1, 2021, to authorize jurisdictional assessing officers (JAOs) to issue reassessment notices under sections 148A and 148 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 was unconstitutional.
The court’s decision is consistent with an earlier decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court that reassessment notices must be issued via randomized automated allocation (i.e., in a “faceless manner”) and that section 147A was unconstitutional. The court held that the legislature cannot override judicial decisions without addressing the statutory basis on which those decisions were founded and that by enacting section 147A, the legislature had sought to over-reach the decisions of various High Courts.
The case is: Bala Sreenivas Rao Somisetty v. ITO (WP No. 28520 of 2023)
Read an October 2026 report prepared by the KPMG member firm in India