AKIL KURESHI, J. - (1.) These petitions, though filed by different petitioners, arise in the common factual background. We may notice the facts from Special Civil Application No. 22594 of 2017. The petitioner is a private limited company registered under the Companies Act, 1956. For the Assessment Year 2010-2011, the petitioner-company had not filed any return. The respondent-Assessing Officer issued a notice dated 30th March 2017 to assess/re-assess the petitioner's income for AY 2010-2011, since he was of the opinion that the income chargeable to tax has escaped assessment. In order to do so, he issued such notice wherein he had recorded elaborate reasons. It is not necessary to reproduce entire reasons. It would be sufficient to record gist thereof. According to such reasons, in search operations which were carried under Section 132 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 ["the Act" for short] in case of Barter group of companies and persons revealing large scale scam of providing accommodation entries. In many cases, it was found that the funds received by the companies in the form of share capital was not genuine, one of them being Dharmanath Share and Services Private Limited [hereinafter referred to as, "the Dharmanath"]. The Assessing Officer noted that the petitioner company had merged with the said Dharmanath. Before its merger, however, the assessee company had been engaged in the entire chain of transactions of bogus share capital money and of providing accommodation entires. According to the Assessing Officer, the company had received commission @ 2% in such deals and had thus earned commission income which was unaccounted. The petitioner raised objections to the said notice of reopening under letter dated 21st August 2017. Such objections, however, were rejected by an Order dated 15th November 2017. Hence, the petition.
(2.) Being conscious of the limitation in a case of reopening where no return was filed, counsel for the petitioners confined himself to the following arguments : [i] That the petitioner-Company had amalgamated with Dharmanath Share and Services Private Limited by a judgment of this Court dated 4th May 2012 with effect from 1st April 2010. Since amalgamation, the company had no legal existence. Notice of reopening, therefore, could not have been issued to such a company. [ii] M/s. Dharmanath Share and Services Private Limited was subjected to assessment under Section 153[C] of the Act in which entire transactions; including the commission amount, have been taxed. The same cannot now be taxed in the hands of assessee. [iii] In view of the facts noted above, the Assessing Officer cannot be said to have a reasonable belief that the income chargeable to tax has escaped assessment.
(3.) On the other hand, learned counsel for the Department opposed the petitions contending that the Assessing Officer has recorded proper reasons. There is prima facie material to show that the petitioner-company had earned sizeable unaccounted income and yet filed no return.;