The Supreme Court has stayed a 10 September 2026 Punjab & Haryana High Court judgment that had struck down Section 147A of the Income-tax Act, 1961 as unconstitutional. Section 147A was inserted retrospectively — effective 1 April 2021 — by the Finance Act, 2026, to empower Jurisdictional Assessing Officers, rather than only the Faceless Assessment framework, to issue reassessment notices.
The stay is conditional: assessment and reassessment proceedings relying on the provision may not proceed further until the Supreme Court finally decides the matter, which is listed for hearing on 3 December 2026 — leaving the underlying constitutional question live and unresolved in the interim, but preventing the High Court's invalidation from taking immediate, disruptive effect.
The order puts on hold a High Court ruling that had invalidated Parliament's retrospective fix to the faceless-reassessment jurisdiction controversy, leaving the validity of a large number of reassessment notices genuinely unresolved until the Supreme Court's final decision — a significant matter for any taxpayer with a pending reassessment traceable to a Jurisdictional Assessing Officer's notice.