What should be done on receiving a notice under section 148?

Four things, in order. Fix the date on which the notice was actually issued and check it against section 149, because nothing else matters if the notice is out of time. File the return within the period the notice specifies, whatever objections are being taken, because a return filed later is not deemed to be a return under section 139. Ask in writing for the order under section 148A(3), the information relied on and the approval record, so that the objections are argued from the file rather than from inference. Then take every jurisdictional objection in the reply and again in the grounds, because jurisdiction is not conferred by participation but a court asked to intervene late will ask why the point was not taken earlier. Not responding is the worst course: the officer issues a notice under section 142(1), a failure to comply with its terms opens the way to a best judgment assessment under section 144 on the material he has, and the consequences of non-filing follow separately.

What must the Assessing Officer have before issuing a notice under section 148?

Information suggesting that income chargeable to tax has escaped assessment, falling within the definition the section itself supplies. Under the current text that definition is sub-section (3) and has six clauses; under the text section 152 preserves it was Explanation 1 and had five. He must also, except where section 148A does not apply, have completed the section 148A procedure and passed an order holding it a fit case, and the notice must carry a copy of that order.

How long do I get to file the return in response to a section 148 notice?

Whatever the notice specifies, and it cannot exceed three months from the end of the month in which the notice is issued. Under the text section 152 preserves the period was three months but the Assessing Officer could allow further time on an application; the current text has no extension power. A return filed after the period specified is not deemed to be a return under section 139.

Does a search still lead to a notice under section 148?

Not for a search initiated on or after 1 September 2024. Those years are assessed under the block scheme in Chapter XIV-B. For a search between 1 April 2021 and 31 August 2024 the preserved text applies, by section 152(3), and under it Explanation 2 deemed the officer to have information, so the notice issued without any section 148A stage. On such a file the assessee gets no show-cause, no information annexed and no order to attack, so the first step is to ask the Assessing Officer in writing for the reasons recorded and the material relied on, and to file objections to them before the assessment is framed. The deeming removes the argument about whether there was information; it does not remove the need for the officer to show why the material shows escapement for the particular year, and that is where the file is fought.

Does section 148 change under the Income-tax Act, 2025?

It becomes section 280, in Chapter XVI. The structure is close to the current 1961 text: the notice is subject to section 281, the period to file cannot exceed three months from the end of the month of issue, and the information is defined within the section. Prior approval runs wider than under the 1961 provision, covering not only scheme information but also directions of the Approving Panel under section 274(6) and a finding or direction in an order of an authority, Tribunal or court.

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s.148 — The reassessment notice

The notice that starts a reassessment: what must exist before it issues, what it must carry, how long the assessee has to answer it, and what to do on receiving one.

Currently operative

Two texts. The section as it now stands was substituted with effect from 1 September 2024 by Act No. 15 of 2024, the Finance (No. 2) Act 2024, and is arranged as sub-sections (1) to (3). What section 152 preserves for the cases it covers is the text as it stood IMMEDIATELY BEFORE that date, not the text as first substituted in 2021: the Department's footnote records amendments in between by Act No. 6 of 2022, the Finance Act 2022, and by Act No. 8 of 2023, the Finance Act 2023, so a notice tested against an earlier date has to be read against the text then in force, which is not set out here. As it stood at repeal it ran as a single unnumbered provision with three provisos and three Explanations. One difference is worth noting at the outset: the earlier text required the officer to SERVE the notice, the current text to ISSUE it. Which of the two texts governs is decided by section 152(3) and section 152(4), and is dealt with on that page. Sourcing: the current text was read on the Year 2025 edition and the earlier one on footnote 27 to the "2024 (No. 2)" edition, which quotes it in full.

Income-tax Act, 1961

s.148

Income-tax Act, 2025

s.280

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 148 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 is the notice that begins a reassessment. Under the current text the Assessing Officer, before making an assessment, reassessment or recomputation under section 147 and subject to section 148A, issues a notice accompanied by a copy of the order passed under section 148A(3), requiring a return within such period as the notice specifies, not exceeding three months from the end of the month in which it is issued. Two provisos govern: no notice may issue unless the Assessing Officer has information suggesting escapement, and where that information came through the scheme notified under section 135A the notice needs the prior approval of the specified authority. Sub- section (2) treats the return as one under section 139, but a return filed after the period specified is expressly not so treated. Sub-section (3) defines the information, in six clauses: risk management strategy, an audit objection, information under a section 90 or 90A agreement, information under the section 135A scheme, information requiring action in consequence of a Tribunal or court order, and information emanating from a survey under section 133A other than section 133A(2A) conducted on or after 1 September 2024. In the text preserved by section 152 the definition was Explanation 1 and had only the first five of those clauses; the officer had to SERVE rather than issue; prior approval was required for every notice unless a section 148A(d) order had already been approved; the return period could be extended on application; and Explanation 2 deemed the officer to have information in four situations, namely a search or requisition in the assessee's own case, a survey other than one under section 133A(2A), seized or requisitioned valuables of another person found to belong to the assessee, and seized or requisitioned books or documents of another person pertaining to or relating to him. That deeming is how search years were reassessed between 1 April 2021 and 31 August 2024, before Chapter XIV-B block assessment was reinstated for searches from 1 September 2024. The counterpart in the Income-tax Act, 2025 is section 280.

What the provision does

Starts the reassessment and fixes what the assessee must answer and by when. The power to assess or reassess is in section 147, not here, and the scope of what may be brought to tax once the notice is valid is decided there. Under both texts the notice cannot issue unless information suggesting escapement already exists; what changed on 1 September 2024 is that the deeming of such information in search and survey cases was dropped, the approval for the notice itself was confined to section 135A cases with the approval in every other case moving to the section 148A(3) order, and the period to file became a cap rather than an extendable period.

Threshold questions

When the notice was in fact issued, taken from the dispatch record, the digital signature time and the portal or e-mail entry rather than the date printed on it, because section 149 runs from issue and the two dates differ often enough to decide the file
Which of the two texts governs, which section 152 decides and which is dealt with on that page
Was the notice accompanied by a copy of the section 148A(3) order, or under the preserved text the section 148A(d) order, where one was required
Does the information relied on fall within one of the six clauses of sub-section (3), or the five of Explanation 1 under the preserved text, and did the officer identify which clause
Was the period allowed to file the return within the three month cap, and under the preserved text was an application for further time made and answered
Was prior approval obtained at the stage the applicable text required it, which under the current text means the section 148A(3) order in the ordinary case and the notice itself in a section 135A case
Was the return filed within the period specified, because one filed later is not a return under section 139 and the consequences of that run through the whole assessment

In practice

The recurring disputes.

The notice that travels without the order

Sub-section (1) requires the notice to be accompanied by a copy of the order passed under section 148A(3), and the assessee's point is that a notice issued without it is incomplete at the moment of issue, because the statute makes the order part of what is to be issued and not a document to be supplied on request. The point is sharper on the current text than it was on the preserved one, which required the notice to carry a copy of the order under clause (d) of section 148A "if required". Those two words are gone, and the ordinary rule is that Parliament is taken to have meant the deletion. The Revenue's first answer starts from the same ground: section 148A(4) still disapplies the whole of section 148A where the information came through the scheme notified under section 135A, so in such a case there is no order to annex and the obligation cannot be absolute however the words now read. Beyond that the Revenue says the requirement is directory, that the order is in any event on the portal and within the assessee's knowledge, and that section 292B saves a notice which is in substance in conformity with the intent and purpose of the Act. The limit of that last point is that section 292B reaches a mistake, defect or omission in a notice, summons or other proceeding and not the absence of a condition the statute makes jurisdictional, and where the line falls is the whole of the argument. The strength of the point depends on what the assessee did next, because an objection taken in the reply reads very differently from one taken after the assessment. Approval itself is dealt with on the section 151 page.

Information outside the statutory definition

The definition in sub-section (3) is exhaustive in form, and an officer who relies on something outside its six clauses has no information within the section. The Revenue's answer is that the clauses are drawn widely, that clause (i) imports whatever the Board's risk management strategy contains and is not justiciable item by item, and that at the notice stage the question is whether there is information suggesting escapement rather than whether it would sustain an addition. The argument is therefore usually about whether the officer identified the clause at all, which the record answers.

What survived the dropping of Explanation 2

Under the preserved text a search, a requisition or a survey deemed the officer to have information, and the assessee could not argue about the quality of what was found. The deeming did not, however, carry the same consequence in every case, and on a preserved-text file this is the first thing to check. The proviso to the preserved section 148A disapplied that section in four situations only: a search or requisition in the assessee's own case, seized or requisitioned valuables of another person found to belong to him, seized or requisitioned books or documents of another person relating to him, and information received under the section 135A scheme. A survey is not among them, although a survey other than one under section 133A(2A) was among the four situations in Explanation 2 to section 148. So on a survey file under the preserved text the officer was deemed to have the information and was nonetheless bound to issue the show-cause and pass the clause (d) order, and a notice that skipped that stage is open to attack. The deeming is gone from the current text, because a search from 1 September 2024 is assessed under Chapter XIV-B instead. The live question is the overlap: a survey on or after 1 September 2024 now produces information under clause (vi) rather than deemed information. The Revenue's answer is that clause (vi) requires only that the information emanate from a qualifying survey, and that adequacy of material is for the assessment and not for the validity of the notice. The assessee's answer is narrower and better: nothing is deemed on the current text, so a notice that recites the survey and says nothing about what it produced has not engaged clause (vi) at all.

The late return, and what it costs

A return furnished after the period specified is not deemed to be a return under section 139, by the proviso to sub-section (2). What that costs is concrete. The Revenue's case is that there is then no return on which a notice under section 143(2) is called for, nothing capable of revision, and no claim to carry forward a loss returned in it. One consequence does not follow from the proviso by itself, and it is the one most often asserted: a best judgment assessment. Section 144 is triggered by its own conditions, which in an ordinary reassessment means a failure to comply with the terms of a notice under section 142(1), so an officer who wants to assess to the best of his judgment has to issue that notice and record the default. A jump from the late return straight to section 144 should be resisted. The answer available is that the proviso denies the deeming and no more. It does not direct the officer to ignore what the document contains, and material placed before him before the assessment is framed remains material he is bound to consider. So the point is argued as a failure to consider material, never as an assertion that the late return was good.