Mere Digitally Signing On Notice Contemplated Under S. 148 Income Tax Act Won’t Amount To Issuance Of Notice: Allahabad HC

[18 March 2022] The Allahabad High Court has held that merely digitally signing the notice as contemplated under Section 148 of the Income Tax Act is not the issuance of notice and that the notice needs to be sent/dispatched to the income tax assessee through paper or electronic devices and when it is so sent, that day would be considered as the date of issuance of notice.
The Bench of Justice Surya Prakash Kesarwani and Justice Jayant Banerji observed,
“Thus, after digitally signing the notice the income tax authority has to issue it to the assessee either in paper form or through electronic mail. Section 13 (1) of the Information Technology Act 2000 provides that dispatch of an electronic record occurs when it enters a computer resource outside the control of the originator. The aforesaid Section 13(1) indicates the point of time of issuance of notice. Therefore, after a notice is digitally signed and when it is entered by the income tax authority in computer resource outside his control i.e. the control of the originator then that point of time would be the time of issuance of a notice,”.