The Supreme Court had held recently that the date of receiving the assessment order in most cases is totally irrelevant to compute the limitation period of the Principal Commissioner’s revision period under Section 263 of the Income Tax Act.
A Bench of Justices had made these observations in the Commissioner of Income Tax case, Chennai vs Mohammed Meeran Shahul Hameed which dealt with the calculation of any particular limitation period which falls under Section 263 of the Income Tax Act.
The Supreme Court, in a judgement that was given by Justice M.R. Shah was the one that framed the primary question of law with regards to whether the relevant date for the purpose of considering the particular period of limitation under Section 263(2) of the IT Act is on the same date on which the order is in actual received by the assessee or not.
This question was answered by the bench negatively in saying that since Section 263 makes use of the word made and not received, the Bench holds, the receipt of the order in question has no relevance, especially for the purpose of determining the limitation of the order itself.