Section 143 of Income Tax Act, 1961

Section 143(3) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 comes into play after the return is filed under Section 139 or as per the notice given under section 142(1) of the income Tax Act, 1961. The Assessing Officer has the power to send a notice if he has a reasonable necessity to know whether the assesse has filed any understated or over stated amount in the return under section 143(2) to the assesse, who has filed the return and verified by following the procedure as per Section 143(1) of Income Tax Act, 1961 called as Summary assessment without calling the assesse. If any Scrutiny is required then for that purpose he can ask the assesse to provide for any evidence or particular document needed for confirmation of the doubt or ask him to appear in the office on the particular date given in the notice served to the assesse. Then as per Section 143(3) the Assessing Officer if any evidence is called for, should consider that evidence produced before him and should pass a written order whether the return filed by assesse is valid or not. Also should calculate the amount of losses or refunds to which the assesse is entitled. There are also some provisos in this particular section. This entire scheme of assessment done by the assessing officer as per Section 143(3) is known as “Scrutiny Assessment” or “Regular Assessment”. In the project the author would like to understand and analyze how this scrutiny assessment is followed in case to case basis. How can the scope of the scrutiny assessment is limited is also discussed by the author in the project.