Assessment giving effect to order of Tribunal: Section 254, r/w. s. 154 : A. Y. 2001-02: Tribunal restored proceeding back to AO for fresh examination of nature of share transaction: AO passed an order giving effect to order of Tribunal: Subsequently, successor AO recomputed loss and passed a fresh order: Fresh order is without jurisdiction:

For the A. Y. 2001-02, the assessee filed return of income claiming loss of Rs. 16.82 crore which included a loss from share transactions of Rs. 13.63 crore. An assessment order was passed u/s. 143(3) determining a total loss of Rs. 3.13 crore after disallowing the loss from the share transactions. The Tribunal restored the assessment proceeding back to Assessing Officer for fresh examination of the nature of the share transactions in view of SEBI guidelines and to decide the matter. The Assessing Officer passed an order giving effect to the order of the Tribunal and recomputed the total loss at Rs. 16.83 crore. Subsequently, the successor in office of the Assessing Officer passed another order computing the loss at Rs. 3.19 crore.

The Bombay High Court allowed the writ petition filed by the assessee and held as under:

“i) Once the Assessing Officer had given effect to the order of the Tribunal, his successor-in- office had no jurisdiction to pass a fresh order. The impugned order of the successor-in-office in fact reflects his awareness of the earlier order which was passed by the predecessor in order to give effect to the order of the Tribunal became the successor Assessing Officer has, in his computation, commenced with a total income as computed in the order of the predecessor Assessing Officer (viz., a loss of Rs. 16.83 crore). The successor Assessing Officer has not purported to exercise the jurisdiction u/s. 154.

ii) Once effect was given to the order of the Tribunal by the passing of an order u/s. 254 that order could have been modified or set aside only by following a procedure which is known to the Act. What the Assessing Officer has done by the impugned order is to conduct a substantive review of the earlier order of the predecessor which was clearly impermissible. Since the order of the successor Assessing Officer is clearly without jurisdiction, there was no reason or justification to relegate the Petitioner to the remedy of an appeal.

iii) Therefore, the instant petition was allowed and the assessment order passed by the successor Assessing Officer was quashed and set aside.”