How long do I have to object that the wrong Assessing Officer has my case?

The statute says one month, not thirty days, and every clause ends with the words whichever is earlier. Where a return under section 139(1) was filed, clause (a) gives one month from service of a notice under section 142(1) or section 143(2), or until the assessment is completed, whichever is earlier. Where no such return was filed, clause (b) gives no period of a month at all: the cut-off is the expiry of the time allowed by the notice for making the return, or by the show cause under the first proviso to section 144, whichever is earlier. On a search or requisition, clause (c) gives one month from service of the notice under section 153A(1) or section 153C(2), or the completion of the assessment, whichever is earlier.

Does the bar apply to a reassessment under section 148?

It depends on whether a return under section 139(1) was filed, not on the provision under which the proceeding was taken. A filer who is later reassessed is in clause (a), and the Delhi High Court applied clause (a) to a section 148 reassessment in CIT-III v. Shyam Sunder Infrastructure. Clause (b) governs only where no section 139(1) return was made. There is a narrower point for the assessee in that: where a return was filed and no notice under section 142(1) or section 143(2) issues in the reassessment, clause (a) has no notice to run the month from, so the only cut-off left is completion of the assessment. The bar still falls, but it falls on that date and not a month earlier.

What should the objection actually say?

Three things, in a separate letter rather than inside a reply on the merits. That the officer named does not hold the case, with the reason. That a determination under sub-section (2) is asked for, in terms, under sub-section (4), before the assessment is made. And a request for the direction or order under section 120(2) relied on, any order under section 127, any direction requiring concurrent exercise under section 120(5) and any Board direction under the Explanation to section 120(1). Keep the acknowledgment. The timing matters doubly, because the duty under sub-section (4) is expressed to be subject to sub-section (3) and does not arise on an objection already out of time.

Does clause (c) cover a search assessed under section 148?

Not on its words. Clause (c) was inserted by the Finance Act 2016 with effect from 1 June 2016 and still names only section 153A(1) and section 153C(2). It was never updated for the search assessments routed through section 148 from 1 April 2021, nor for the revival of block assessment under Chapter XIV-B from 1 September 2024. For a search after 31 March 2021 assessed under sections 147 and 148, clause (c) does not reach the case, and which of clauses (a) and (b) applies turns on whether a return under section 139(1) was filed.

Does section 124 change under the Income-tax Act, 2025?

It becomes section 242, in Chapter XIV. The structure survives with two traps. The bar on challenging jurisdiction is in section 242(4), not section 242(3), because the 2025 Act splits the old section 124(2) into two sub-sections and the bar is pushed down one. And the long recitals of officer ranks are replaced throughout by the defined term specified income-tax authority. Sub-section (1) remains area- based and sub-section (6) is the all the powers provision.

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s.124 — Jurisdiction of Assessing Officers

Who among the Assessing Officers of a station holds a given case, how long an assessee has to object that it is the wrong officer, and what the officer must do when the objection is made.

Currently operative

One text, and an old one. The present section is the product of the Direct Tax Laws (Amendment) Act 1987, in force from 1 April 1988; on the Board's own account in Circular No. 549 dated 31 October 1989 the earlier sub-sections (3) to (7) were reproduced, with amendments, as sub-sections (1) to (5) of the new section, so the ancestor of the present sub-section (3) is the old sub-section (5). Anything said about "section 124(3)" in a judgment on an assessment governed by the pre-1 April 1988 text is being said about a differently numbered provision, which is why the much-cited decision of 29 July 1988 in Hindustan Transport Co. v. IAC, on an assessment completed on 30 March 1988, has to be read with care. Clause (c) of sub-section (3) was inserted by the Finance Act 2016 with effect from 1 June 2016 and has not been touched since. Sourcing: the current text was read on the Department's Year 2025 edition, which serves an empty footnotes block for this section, so the 1988 commencement is taken from Circular No. 549 and not from a footnote.

Income-tax Act, 1961

s.124

Income-tax Act, 2025

s.242

In force from 1 April 2026, but s.536(2)(c) preserves the 1961 Act for tax years beginning before that date.

In short

Section 124 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 settles which Assessing Officer has a case, and it does so by reference to area. Sub-section (1) provides that where an officer has been vested with jurisdiction over any area by a direction or order under section 120(1) or 120(2), then within the limits of that area he has jurisdiction over a person carrying on business at a place within the area, or at the principal place of business where there is more than one, and over any other person residing within the area. The word area appears five times in that sub-section. Sub-section (2) sends a dispute about jurisdiction to the named senior authorities, or to the Board if they disagree. Sub-section (3) bars an assessee from calling the jurisdiction in question after a point, with one clause for a filer under section 139(1), one for a person who made no such return and one for a search or requisition case; the clauses and their triggers are set out in the first question below, and each ends with the words "whichever is earlier". Sub-section (4), subject to sub- section (3), requires the officer who is not satisfied with the correctness of an objection to refer the matter for determination under sub-section (2) before the assessment is made. Sub-section (5) gives every Assessing Officer all the powers of an Assessing Officer in respect of income accruing or arising or received within the area over which he has been vested with jurisdiction. Section 124 has to be read with section 127, the Act's own machinery for moving a case between officers on recorded reasons, with a hearing except where the offices are in the same city, locality or place, and whose sub-section (4) provides that a transfer may be made at any stage and does not require the re-issue of a notice already issued. What section 124 never supplies is the document that decides a live file: the direction or order under section 120(2) for the charge is what vests the case, an administrative instruction is not, and that order is almost never on the record. The counterpart in the Income-tax Act, 2025 is section 242, where the bar sits in sub-section (4).

What the provision does

Fixes which officer holds a case by reference to area, and fixes a time after which the assessee may no longer say it is the wrong officer. It does not itself vest anything: the vesting is done by the direction or order under section 120, and section 124 operates on that. It says nothing about the rank of the officer and nothing about the size of the case; and where two or more officers hold a case concurrently under section 120(5), it does not tell you which of them should be dealing with it.

Threshold questions

Which clause of sub-section (3) applies, which turns on whether a return under section 139(1) was filed and not on the provision under which the proceeding was taken, and whether a belated return leaves the assessee outside clause (a)
When the one month began, which is service of the notice under section 142(1) or section 143(2) and not the date on the notice, and whether the assessment was completed first, since every clause ends with whichever is earlier
Whether the objection taken is territorial or is about the rank or the identity of the officer, because the Tribunals have read the bar as directed at the first while the High Court authority runs the other way
Was an objection in fact taken before the assessment, in writing, and was a reference under sub-section (4) asked for in terms
What the direction or order under section 120(2) for the charge actually says, because that is the document that vests the case and it is almost never on the record
Whether any order under section 127 is relied on, whether the direction or order under section 120 requires concurrent exercise by two or more Assessing Officers under section 120(5), whether any Board direction under the Explanation to section 120(1) is relied on, and whether any of them has been produced

In practice

The recurring disputes.

Whether the bar reaches a non-territorial objection

Sub-section (3) says the jurisdiction of an Assessing Officer without qualification, and the Revenue reads it that way: a court that reads a limitation into unqualified words needs a reason, and if every non- territorial objection may be taken at any time then assessments are perpetually open, which is what the Karnataka High Court objected to in Adarsh Developers v. DIT. The assessee's reading, which the Tribunals have accepted, is that sub-section (1) works on an officer who has been vested with an area under section 120 and that sub- section (3) takes its colour from that, so the bar is directed at territorial objections; the Bombay High Court said something close to that in Peter Vaz v. CIT and in Bansilal B. Raisoni and Sons v. ACIT. Both readings are available on the words. Note that Peter Vaz and Bansilal were both cases about the absence of a statutory precondition rather than about the identity of the officer, and that Bansilal refused relief, so neither closes the question.

What sub-section (5) actually gives

The Revenue relies on sub-section (5) for the proposition that every Assessing Officer has all the powers of an Assessing Officer, and so that an officer who holds the area can do anything in it. That reading is not confined to submissions: the Allahabad High Court in Shivaaditiya Jems and Jewellery (P.) Ltd. v. ITO dismissed a writ relying on sub-section (5) in just this way, holding that a pecuniary limit fixed for the distribution of work creates no inherent lack of jurisdiction. The assessee answers that sub-section (5) is a saving of powers and not a rule of allocation: it ensures that an officer who does hold a case is not short of any statutory power in relation to it, and leaves untouched the anterior question whether he holds it; read as the Revenue reads it, section 120 and section 127 would both be largely decorative. That answer has not been tested against the Allahabad reasoning in a High Court and the point is open. What is not open is the misattribution that keeps appearing in submissions, in which the all the powers language is placed in sub- section (1); it is in sub-section (5), and it is tied to income accruing or arising or received within the area.

Whether a belated return is inside clause (a) at all

Clause (a) is expressed to apply where the assessee has made a return under section 139(1). A return under section 139(4) is not literally within it, so the argument is run that a belated filer falls outside clause (a) and its one month. The answer against it is on the words of clause (b), which applies where he has made no such return, that is, no return under section 139(1): on the ordinary reading the belated filer is in clause (b), and his cut-off is the expiry of the time allowed by the notice under section 142(1) or section 148 rather than a month from service. The assessee's reply is that clause (b) is addressed to a person served with a notice calling for a return, which does not describe someone who has already filed one. The point does not appear to have been decided, and it is worth taking where the dates make it available.

Concurrent vesting, and the Explanation to section 120(1)

Two limbs of section 120 answer most jurisdiction grounds and neither is usually mentioned. Sub-section (5) permits two or more Assessing Officers, whether or not of the same class, to exercise and perform powers and functions concurrently, so where a concurrent direction covers the officer who acted, he holds the case however an instruction distributes the work; that is the answer the Delhi High Court accepted in Abhishek Jain v. ITO. The Explanation to sub- section (1) provides that an authority higher in rank may, if so directed by the Board, exercise the functions of an authority lower in rank, and that any such direction is deemed to be a direction under sub-section (1), which is the exact subject of a senior officer taking a junior officer's case. The assessee's answer to both is that each is a route and not a presumption: the concurrent direction and the Board's direction are documents, and on the records in this line of cases neither has been produced. So the dispute is in practice about who has to produce what, and an assessee who asks for both in writing early and records the silence is in a far better position than one who argues the point cold.

The reference under sub-section (4), and what its breach is worth

Sub-section (4) obliges the officer who is not satisfied with an objection to refer the question for determination before the assessment is made, and it is almost never complied with. The assessee says the duty is mandatory and the assessment made without it is bad. The Revenue has two answers: the duty is expressed to be subject to sub-section (3), so no duty arises on an objection already out of time, which is the point taken in Subhash Chander v. CIT; and the Delhi High Court held in CIT v. S.S. Ahluwalia that an assessment made without the reference is not a nullity but a curable irregularity remediable by remand. The practical consequence is that the ground is worth most when the objection was timely and the record shows it, and that on a late objection it may be worth nothing at all.