Section 382 of the Income-tax Act, 2025

Section 382 — Vacancies, etc , not to invalidate proceedings. Successor to s.245P of the 1961 Act.

Where this section sits

Section 382 is in Chapter XVIII — Appeals Revisions and Alternate Dispute Resolutions, which runs from section 356 to section 389.

← Section 381 · Section 383 →

What this section does

The section protects proceedings before, and advance rulings pronounced by, the Board for Advance Rulings from challenge on one ground alone: neither may be questioned, nor is either invalid, merely because of the existence of any vacancy or defect in the constitution of the Board for Advance Rulings.

Why it is there

An advance ruling is relied on before a transaction is carried out, so its worth depends on not being unsettled later by an administrative shortcoming in how the Board happened to be composed. The section confines the protection to that single ground, leaving every other objection to the proceeding or the ruling untouched.

Who it applies to

An applicant who has obtained, or is party to a proceeding for, an advance ruling
The Board for Advance Rulings, whose proceedings and rulings are protected
Any person seeking to question a proceeding or ruling on the ground of a vacancy or defect in constitution

What this means in practice

The word doing the work is "merely": the section saves a proceeding or ruling only where the vacancy or defect in constitution is the sole ground of attack. It says nothing about the correctness of a ruling, about jurisdiction, or about any other procedural defect, and a challenge resting on those grounds is unaffected. Both limbs are covered — the proceeding itself and the pronouncement of the ruling.

Where you meet this section

A taxpayer rarely meets this section on its own; it surfaces only as an answer when a ruling of the Board for Advance Rulings, or a proceeding before it, is sought to be set aside because the Board was short of a member or was otherwise irregularly constituted.

The words themselves

shall be questioned or shall be invalid on the ground merely of the existence of any vacancy or defect in the constitution of the Board for Advance Rulings

Section 382, Income-tax Act, 2025.

What people get wrong

Reading the section as validating a ruling against all objections. It protects only against the ground of a vacancy or defect in the constitution of the Board for Advance Rulings.
Assuming it covers only pronounced rulings. It extends to any proceeding before the Board as well as to the pronouncement of an advance ruling.
Overlooking the word "merely". Where a vacancy or defect is combined with another sustainable ground, the section does not answer that other ground.

What this replaced

The correspondence is the Income Tax Department’s own, from its comparison utility for the 1961 and 2025 Acts. A renumbering is the easy half; whether the words changed is the half that decides cases.

245P - Vacancies, etc., not to invalidate proceedings

See the full 1961 to 2025 concordance.

Notifications that reach this section

A notification is made under a power the Act gives and, within that power, is law. These too were made under the 1961 Act and are placed here by the department’s concordance.

Notification No. 97/2021 [F.No. 370142/31/2021-TPL (Part II)] / SO 3562(E) — 2 the Gazette of INDIA : Extraordinary [Part Ii—sec. 3(ii)] 2021-09-01

See the notifications index.

What this page does not tell you. It does not reproduce the section. Everything above was written from the section’s own text as the Income Tax Department publishes it — the text is here, and nothing here is advice on your facts. Where a figure matters, read the sub-section it comes from.