Section 436 — Correctness of assessment not to be questioned. Successor to s.242 of the 1961 Act.
Section 436 is in Chapter XX — Refunds, which runs from section 431 to section 438.
The section bars two things in a claim under the refunds Chapter. First, it is not open to the assessee to question the correctness of any assessment, or other matter decided, which has become final and conclusive, or to ask for a review of that assessment or matter. Second, the assessee is not entitled to any relief on such a claim except refund of tax wrongly paid or paid in excess.
A refund claim is a claim for money back, not a second appeal. Without this bar, an assessee who let an assessment become final could reopen it years later by framing the dispute as a refund application. The section confines the remedy to its purpose — returning tax wrongly paid or paid in excess — and leaves the correctness of a concluded assessment where it was settled.
The bar covers not only the assessment but any "other matter decided which has become final and conclusive", so a finding in a concluded proceeding cannot be reopened through the refund route either. The relief available is bounded by the closing words — refund of tax wrongly paid or paid in excess, and nothing more — so a refund claim cannot be used to obtain a recomputation or any other consequential relief. What the section does not do is bar a refund where tax was in fact wrongly paid or paid in excess with no concluded decision standing in the way.
An assessee whose assessment has become final, no appeal having been filed, pays the demand and then applies for a refund on the ground that a deduction was wrongly disallowed. The claim fails: the section bars questioning the correctness of the assessment or asking for its review. Had he simply paid Rs. 5 lakh more than the demand raised, a refund of that excess would be within the section, requiring no concluded matter to be reopened.
It is the ground on which a refund claim under this Chapter is rejected where the claim in substance attacks a completed assessment, and it is what limits the relief an order on such a claim can give.
it shall not be open to the assessee to question the correctness of any assessment, or other matter decided which has become final and conclusive, or ask for a review of the aforesaid assessment or matter
See the full 1961 to 2025 concordance.
See the notifications index.