- (1.) The short point canvassed by the writ petitioners is that the reasonable opportunity of being heard as envisaged in section 127 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 had not been afforded to the petitioning assessee in transferring the case from the Kolkata circle to the Hyderabad circle. The facts are not much in dispute.
(2.) By a notice dated December 15, 2010, the Commissioner of Income Tax Kolkata-XII called upon the petitioning assessee to show cause as to why the case pertaining to this assessee should not be clubbed with other related assessees and centralised under Deputy Commissioner Income Tax, Central Circle-1. Vishakhapattanam. The first paragraph of the letter reads as follows: Pursuant to search and seizure operation conducted on 02-11-2010 in your case, the Commissioner of Income Tax, (Central) Hyderabad sent a proposal for transfer of your case to the D.C.IT, C. C-1, Vishakhapattanam for centralization with other group cases for assessment of your case. Hence, in exercise of powers conferred by section 127(2) of the IT Act, 1961 read with sub-section 3 thereof and all other powers enabling the undersigned in this behalf, your case is proposed to be transferred to the said jurisdiction along with all assessment records, current/arrear demands, dossier files, all pending proceedings including recovery proceedings.
(3.) The petitioning-assessee replied on December 29, 2010. A subsequent letter was written on January 5, 2011 by the petitioning-assessee complaining of the assessee not having been favoured with the copy of the proposal of the CIT (Central) Hyderabad. In course of both letters, the assessee maintained that the mere fact that search and seizure operations had been conducted at the premises of the assessee or related parties may not be ground enough to transfer the case from the Kolkata circle to the Hyderabad circle. The hearing was held on January 5, 2011 itself as is recorded in the order dated March 13, 2011.;