Section 514 of the Income-tax Act, 2025

Section 514 — Registration of valuers. Successor to s.287A of the 1961 Act.

Where this section sits

Section 514 is in Chapter XXIII — Miscellaneous, which runs from section 499 to section 536.

What this section does

Sub-section (1) requires the Principal Chief Commissioner or Chief Commissioner, or the Principal Director General or Director General, to maintain a register of valuers containing the names and addresses of persons registered under sub-section (2). Sub-section (2) lets a person holding the prescribed qualification for valuing a prescribed class of assets apply for registration in the prescribed form, verified in the prescribed manner and with the prescribed fee, accompanied by a declaration that he will value impartially and truly, furnish his report in the prescribed form, charge fees not exceeding the prescribed rate, and not value any asset in which he has a direct or indirect interest. Sub-section (3) requires the valuation report of a registered valuer to be in the prescribed form and verified in the prescribed manner.

Why it is there

Valuations feed into assessments, so the section creates a controlled list of persons qualified to make them and makes registration conditional on undertakings of impartiality, capped fees and abstention where the valuer has an interest.

Who it applies to

A person possessing the prescribed qualification for valuing a prescribed class of assets
The Principal Chief Commissioner, Chief Commissioner, Principal Director General or Director General maintaining the register
A registered valuer preparing a valuation report

The figures, and what each one turns on

Read the condition in the same row. A figure quoted without it is a wrong answer with a citation attached.

What	Figure	The condition on it	Where
Fee a registered valuer may charge	Not exceeding the prescribed rate or rates	The section sets no figure — the ceiling is prescribed, and the undertaking to observe it is part of the registration declaration	514(2)(c)

What this means in practice

Registration is by application to the named authority, and it turns on holding the prescribed qualification for the particular class of assets, so a valuer is registered for a class rather than at large. The four undertakings in the declaration are conditions of registration, and the last of them — refraining from valuing any asset in which the valuer has a direct or indirect interest — is the one most likely to bite in practice. Reports must be in the prescribed form and verified in the prescribed manner. Every requirement of substance in the section is left to the rules.

An example

Illustrative only, and invented for this page. The figures are chosen to show the rule biting, not taken from any real matter.

A person holding the prescribed qualification for valuing immovable property applies to the Principal Chief Commissioner and is entered in the register of valuers; that registration does not let him value plant and machinery, since sub-section (2) ties the qualification to a class of assets. His declaration binds him on four points, and the one that bites is clause (d) — asked to value a building in which his own firm holds an indirect interest, he must refuse the work. His fee is capped as well, but the section fixes no figure: the ceiling is the rate or rates prescribed, and what he undertakes is to charge no more than that.

Where you meet this section

For a valuer, as the application to the Principal Chief Commissioner or Chief Commissioner, or the Principal Director General or Director General, and as entry in the register those officers maintain under sub-section (1). For a taxpayer, only indirectly — through a registered valuer's report, which sub-section (3) requires to be in the prescribed form and verified in the prescribed manner.

The words themselves

refrain from undertaking the valuation of any asset in which such person has a direct or indirect interest

Section 514(2)(d), Income-tax Act, 2025.

What people get wrong

Treating the declaration as a formality. It commits the valuer to impartial and true valuation, the prescribed report form, fees within the prescribed rate, and abstention where he has a direct or indirect interest.
Assuming registration covers all assets. It is granted on the prescribed qualification for valuing a prescribed class of assets.
Looking here for qualifications, fees or forms. All of them are prescribed elsewhere.

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.

287A - Appearance by registered valuer in certain matters

See the full 1961 to 2025 concordance.

Rules that serve this section

Rules of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 that work section 514. Where the rule’s own heading names the section we say so; the rest are marked on reading the rule, which is our derivation and not the department’s. A rule that serves the section silently and that we have missed will not appear here.

Rule 149 — Procedure to requisition services under section 247(5) and to make a reference under section 247(9) — on reading the rule
Rule 246 — Application for registration as valuer under section 514
Rule 247 — Qualification of registered valuer for the purposes of section 514
Rule 248 — Charging of fee and submission of valuation report under section 514

All of them are in the Rules 2026 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.