News
Supreme Court Upholds Delhi High Court Ruling: Draft Assessment Order Mandatory Under Section 144C Following ITAT Remand
03 Nov 2026
- DMD Advocates
- Matter Reporting
Hon’ble Supreme Court delivered a significant ruling, upholding the High Court’s decision quashing the final assessment orders passed by the Assessing Officer (‘AO’) without first issuing a draft assessment order under Section 144C of the Income-tax Act, in the batch matters concerning JCB India Ltd (lead matter) along with other assessees.
The Court opined that Section 144C specifically requires the AO to first forward a draft of the proposed assessment order to the eligible assessee where any variation is made. Further, under Section 144C(2), the assessee is entitled to either accept the proposed variations or file objections before the dispute resolution panel and the AO within 30 days from receipt of the draft order.
The Court emphasises that this valuable statutory right was not granted to the assessee, resulting in the assessment orders being set aside. Finding no reason to interfere with the High Court’s judgment, the Supreme Court dismisses the Revenue’s SLPs.
DMD Advocates appeared for GE Oil and Gas India Private Limited was represented by Anuradha Dutt, Founder & Managing Partner, Delhi, along with Vijayalakshmi Menon, Founder & Senior Partner, Delhi, Tushar Jarwal, Partner, Rahul Sateeja, Partner, Sherry Goyal, Associate Partner, Viyushti Agarwal, Counsel, Raghav Dutt, Senior Associate and Shubham Gupta, Senior Associate.
