Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
Yashwant Varma and Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav

JUDGMENT

Yashwant Varma, J.

1. The petitioner impugns notices issued under Section 144B of the Income Tax Act, 1961¹ pertaining to Assessment Year² 2021-22 dated 27 June 2022 as well as the consequential notices issued under Sections 143(2) and 142(1) of the Act dated 28 June 2022 and 05 September 2022, respectively.

2. The challenge is essentially mounted on the basis of Section 31 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016³, with the petitioner contending that once the Resolution Plan came to be duly accepted, the bar created in terms of Section 31 of the IBC would apply, and bearing in mind the decision of the Supreme Court in Ghanashyam Mishra and Sons Pvt. Ltd vs. Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd. MANU/SC/0273/2021 : 2021:INSC:250 : (2021) 9 SCC 657, the respondents would stand deprived of the jurisdiction or authority to reopen or assess income for any period prior to the approval of the Resolution Plan.

3. For the purposes of disposal of the instant writ petition, we propose to notice the following salient facts. The proceedings before the National Company Law Tribunal⁴ commenced upon the filing of a petition under Section 7 of the IBC by one Mr. Debashish Majumdar. The petition came to be admitted on 12 November 2020 and an order of moratorium came into effect from that date. In terms of the statutory scheme of the IBC, the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process⁵ would also be deemed to have commenced from the aforesaid date.

4. According to the writ petitioner, the Resolution Professional⁶ appointed pursuant to the commencement of CIRP, on 23 November 2020, informed the Income Tax authorities of the pendency of proceedings before the NCLT. This was followed by a communication dated 28 January 2021 in terms of which the RP is stated to have conveyed a request to the Income Tax authorities to lodge their claims in accordance with the provisions of the IBC.

5. The petitioner, in terms of the provisions of the Act, furnished its Return of Income⁷ for AY 2021-22 on 10 March 2022 declaring a net loss of INR 9,47,64,300/-. The CIRP proceedings in the meanwhile culminated in the approval of the Resolution Plan being approved by the NCLT on 15 Ma........