I opted for s.115BAA in my return but filed Form 10-IC late, and my return itself was belated. CBDT has refused to condone the delay because Circular No. 6/2022 requires the return to have been filed within the s.139(1) due date. Is that a good reason?
No. The Bombay High Court held that filing the return within the s.139(1) due date is not a condition precedent for claiming the benefit of s.115BAA — s.115BAA(5) requires the declaration in Form 10-IC to be filed within that time, not the return — so the first condition in the Board's circular cannot by itself defeat a condonation application. And even where the circular's conditions are not met, the Board retains its independent power under s.119(2)(b) to condone the delay dehors the circular. The delay of 23 days was condoned and the assessment directed to be modified to tax the company under s.115BAA.
Decided by the High Court (B.P. Colabawalla J and Firdosh P. Pooniwalla J) on 2026-04-21, reported as Writ Petition No. 4165 of 2025 (Bombay High Court), Assessment Year 2020-21. It bears on section 115BAA, section 115BAA(5), section 119(2)(b), section 139(1), section 139(4), section 143(1) of the Income Tax Act 1961, in Deductions & Disallowances, Appeals and Assessment & Scrutiny matters.
This is the other half of the Form 10-IC story, and it is the half that decides most live files. The Board's condonation circulars for the concessional regime — Circular No. 6/2022 for assessment year 2020-21, Circular No. 19/2023 for 2021-22 and Circular No. 17/2024 covering 2020-21 to 2022-23 — each carry a condition that the return be filed within the s.139(1) due date, and CPC and the condoning authorities have been treating that condition as jurisdictional. The Court's answer is structural: a circular issued under s.119(2)(b) is an exercise of a discretionary power to relieve hardship, not a re-writing of s.115BAA, and it cannot add a statutory condition that Parliament did not impose. That reasoning is portable to every other condonation circular of the same family. The second limb matters just as much: the Court held that failure to satisfy the circular means only that the assessee loses the straightforward benefit of the circular, and the Board still has to consider the application on its merits under s.119(2)(b). Practitioners should also note what the Court treated as genuine hardship — the pandemic, the loss of the finance staff who were to make the filing, a delay of only 23 days, and the fact that 2020-21 was the first year the form existed at all.
Binding within that High Court's jurisdiction. Persuasive elsewhere.
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For assessment year 2020-21 the due date for filing the return under s.139(1) had been extended to 15 February 2021 by Notification No. 93/2020 dated 31 December 2020, and the date for a belated return under s.139(4) to 31 May 2021 by Circular No. 8/2021. The petitioner filed Form 10-IC on 10 March 2021 — after the s.139(1) date — and then filed its return under s.139(4) on 31 March 2021 declaring total income of Rs.43,02,45,900 and disclosing in the return that it had opted for the concessional rate under s.115BAA. On 24 December 2021 the return was processed under s.143(1) denying the s.115BAA benefit and raising an additional liability of Rs.10,65,60,637 including interest. On 17 March 2022 the Board issued Circular No. 6/2022 condoning delay in filing Form 10-IC for assessment year 2020-21 on three conditions: that the return had been filed on or before the s.139(1) due date; that the company had opted for s.115BAA in the 'Filing Status' field in Part A-GEN of ITR-6; and that Form 10-IC was filed electronically by 30 June 2022 or three months from the end of the month of the circular, whichever was later. On 7 April 2022 the petitioner applied to condone the 23-day delay, attributing it to the pandemic and to the termination of employees in its finance and accounts department. By order dated 3 July 2024 the Board rejected the application on two grounds: that condition (a) of the circular was not satisfied, and that no reasonable cause showing genuine hardship had been made out. It was common ground that the other two conditions of the circular were satisfied.
Rule made absolute. Both grounds of rejection were rejected. On the first, although the petitioner had indeed not filed its return within the s.139(1) due date, there is no such requirement in s.115BAA for claiming the benefit of the section; filing the return within the s.139(1) date is not a condition precedent, and in any event non-fulfilment of the circular's conditions means only that the assessee is not entitled to the straightforward benefit of the circular, and does not deprive the Board of its power to condone delay under s.119(2)(b) dehors the circular (para 13, adopting the reasoning in Gem Nuts & Produce Exports). On the second, there was no reason to disbelieve that the delay of 23 days was caused by the pandemic and by the termination of employees in the finance and accounts department, and the fact that the return was subsequently filed on 31 March 2021 on the basis of draft accounts and a draft tax computation itself showed genuine hardship and bona fide delay; given the short delay and that 2020-21 was the first year of filing Form 10-IC, a lenient and liberal view was called for, which was the very reason the Board had issued Circular No. 6/2022 (para 14). The impugned order dated 3 July 2024 was quashed, the delay of 23 days condoned, and the already completed assessment directed to be modified to levy tax under s.115BAA on the basis that Form 10-IC had been filed within time (para 15).
The Court's route on the first ground is statutory rather than equitable. Section 115BAA(5) requires only that the declaration be furnished within the time allowed under s.139(1); the section says nothing about when the return is to be filed. It followed, in the words of this Court in Gem Nuts & Produce Exports which the Bench adopted, that where Form 10-IC is filed within the s.139(1) date but the return is filed later, the assessee is still eligible for the s.115BAA benefit, so that timely filing of the return is not a condition precedent to the section at all. The circular's condition could therefore not be treated as decisive of the statutory entitlement, and, separately, the Board's discretionary power under s.119(2)(b) subsists independently of any circular it may have issued. On the second ground the Court applied the ordinary tests of genuine hardship and bona fides, treating the length of the delay, the first-year character of the compliance, and the corroborative fact that the return had been prepared and filed on draft accounts as together establishing hardship, and drawing support from Rama Industries Ltd., where this Court had reasoned that assessment year 2020-21 being the first year in which Form 10-IC was required, the possibility of inadvertent failure could not be ruled out, which was precisely why the Board had issued circulars empowering condonation.
However, it is equally true, as rightly pointed out by Mr. Thakkar, that there is no such requirement under Section 115BAA of the Act to claim the benefit thereof.
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Handle my notice → Ask a CA on WhatsAppNo. The Bombay High Court held that filing the return within the s.139(1) due date is not a condition precedent for claiming the benefit of s.115BAA — s.115BAA(5) requires the declaration in Form 10-IC to be filed within that time, not the return — so the first condition in the Board's circular cannot by itself defeat a condonation application. And even where the circular's conditions are not met, the Board retains its independent power under s.119(2)(b) to condone the delay dehors the circular. The delay of 23 days was condoned and the assessment directed to be modified to tax the company under s.115BAA. This was decided by the High Court (B.P. Colabawalla J and Firdosh P. Pooniwalla J) and bears on section 115BAA, section 115BAA(5), section 119(2)(b), section 139(1), section 139(4), section 143(1) of the Income Tax Act 1961. It is reported as Writ Petition No. 4165 of 2025 (Bombay High Court), Assessment Year 2020-21. This is the other half of the Form 10-IC story, and it is the half that decides most live files. The Board's condonation circulars for the concessional regime — Circular No. 6/2022 for assessment year 2020-21, Circular No. 19/2023 for 2021-22 and Circular No. 17/2024 covering 2020-21 to 2022-23 — each carry a condition that the return be filed within the s.139(1) due date, and CPC and the condoning authorities have been treating that condition as jurisdictional. The Court's answer is structural: a circular issued under s.119(2)(b) is an exercise of a discretionary power to relieve hardship, not a re-writing of s.115BAA, and it cannot add a statutory condition that Parliament did not impose. That reasoning is portable to every other condonation circular of the same family. The second limb matters just as much: the Court held that failure to satisfy the circular means only that the assessee loses the straightforward benefit of the circular, and the Board still has to consider the application on its merits under s.119(2)(b). Practitioners should also note what the Court treated as genuine hardship — the pandemic, the loss of the finance staff who were to make the filing, a delay of only 23 days, and the fact that 2020-21 was the first year the form existed at all. If it applies to you, the first step is this: Read s.115BAA(5) to the condoning authority before you read the circular: what must be within the s.139(1) time is the declaration in Form 10-IC, not the return.
For assessment year 2020-21 the due date for filing the return under s.139(1) had been extended to 15 February 2021 by Notification No. 93/2020 dated 31 December 2020, and the date for a belated return under s.139(4) to 31 May 2021 by Circular No. 8/2021. The petitioner filed Form 10-IC on 10 March 2021 — after the s.139(1) date — and then filed its return under s.139(4) on 31 March 2021 declaring total income of Rs.43,02,45,900 and disclosing in the return that it had opted for the concessional rate under s.115BAA. On 24 December 2021 the return was processed under s.143(1) denying the s.115BAA benefit and raising an additional liability of Rs.10,65,60,637 including interest. On 17 March 2022 the Board issued Circular No. 6/2022 condoning delay in filing Form 10-IC for assessment year 2020-21 on three conditions: that the return had been filed on or before the s.139(1) due date; that the company had opted for s.115BAA in the 'Filing Status' field in Part A-GEN of ITR-6; and that Form 10-IC was filed electronically by 30 June 2022 or three months from the end of the month of the circular, whichever was later. On 7 April 2022 the petitioner applied to condone the 23-day delay, attributing it to the pandemic and to the termination of employees in its finance and accounts department. By order dated 3 July 2024 the Board rejected the application on two grounds: that condition (a) of the circular was not satisfied, and that no reasonable cause showing genuine hardship had been made out. It was common ground that the other two conditions of the circular were satisfied. The matter was decided on 2026-04-21 by the High Court (B.P. Colabawalla J and Firdosh P. Pooniwalla J). On those facts the High Court held as follows. Rule made absolute. Both grounds of rejection were rejected. On the first, although the petitioner had indeed not filed its return within the s.139(1) due date, there is no such requirement in s.115BAA for claiming the benefit of the section; filing the return within the s.139(1) date is not a condition precedent, and in any event non-fulfilment of the circular's conditions means only that the assessee is not entitled to the straightforward benefit of the circular, and does not deprive the Board of its power to condone delay under s.119(2)(b) dehors the circular (para 13, adopting the reasoning in Gem Nuts & Produce Exports). On the second, there was no reason to disbelieve that the delay of 23 days was caused by the pandemic and by the termination of employees in the finance and accounts department, and the fact that the return was subsequently filed on 31 March 2021 on the basis of draft accounts and a draft tax computation itself showed genuine hardship and bona fide delay; given the short delay and that 2020-21 was the first year of filing Form 10-IC, a lenient and liberal view was called for, which was the very reason the Board had issued Circular No. 6/2022 (para 14). The impugned order dated 3 July 2024 was quashed, the delay of 23 days condoned, and the already completed assessment directed to be modified to levy tax under s.115BAA on the basis that Form 10-IC had been filed within time (para 15).
The Court's route on the first ground is statutory rather than equitable. Section 115BAA(5) requires only that the declaration be furnished within the time allowed under s.139(1); the section says nothing about when the return is to be filed. It followed, in the words of this Court in Gem Nuts & Produce Exports which the Bench adopted, that where Form 10-IC is filed within the s.139(1) date but the return is filed later, the assessee is still eligible for the s.115BAA benefit, so that timely filing of the return is not a condition precedent to the section at all. The circular's condition could therefore not be treated as decisive of the statutory entitlement, and, separately, the Board's discretionary power under s.119(2)(b) subsists independently of any circular it may have issued. On the second ground the Court applied the ordinary tests of genuine hardship and bona fides, treating the length of the delay, the first-year character of the compliance, and the corroborative fact that the return had been prepared and filed on draft accounts as together establishing hardship, and drawing support from Rama Industries Ltd., where this Court had reasoned that assessment year 2020-21 being the first year in which Form 10-IC was required, the possibility of inadvertent failure could not be ruled out, which was precisely why the Board had issued circulars empowering condonation. In the words reproduced by the source cited on this page: "However, it is equally true, as rightly pointed out by Mr. Thakkar, that there is no such requirement under Section 115BAA of the Act to claim the benefit thereof." The decision followed or applied Gem Nuts & Produce Exports Co. (P.) Ltd. v. PCIT (Bombay) — followed and quoted; Rama Industries Ltd. v. PCIT (Bombay) — followed and quoted.
It was decided by the High Court on 2026-04-21 and is reported as Writ Petition No. 4165 of 2025 (Bombay High Court), Assessment Year 2020-21. Binding within that High Court's jurisdiction. Persuasive elsewhere. A High Court decision binds the assessing officer, the Commissioner (Appeals) and the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal within that state, and is persuasive elsewhere. If your assessment is in a different jurisdiction, check whether your own High Court has taken the same view before relying on it. On section 115BAA, section 115BAA(5), section 119(2)(b), section 139(1), section 139(4), section 143(1), the practical question is whether the facts of your own notice match the facts of this case closely enough for the same rule to apply.
It helps the taxpayer. Rule made absolute. Both grounds of rejection were rejected. On the first, although the petitioner had indeed not filed its return within the s.139(1) due date, there is no such requirement in s.115BAA for claiming the benefit of the section; filing the return within the s.139(1) date is not a condition precedent, and in any event non-fulfilment of the circular's conditions means only that the assessee is not entitled to the straightforward benefit of the circular, and does not deprive the Board of its power to condone delay under s.119(2)(b) dehors the circular (para 13, adopting the reasoning in Gem Nuts & Produce Exports). On the second, there was no reason to disbelieve that the delay of 23 days was caused by the pandemic and by the termination of employees in the finance and accounts department, and the fact that the return was subsequently filed on 31 March 2021 on the basis of draft accounts and a draft tax computation itself showed genuine hardship and bona fide delay; given the short delay and that 2020-21 was the first year of filing Form 10-IC, a lenient and liberal view was called for, which was the very reason the Board had issued Circular No. 6/2022 (para 14). The impugned order dated 3 July 2024 was quashed, the delay of 23 days condoned, and the already completed assessment directed to be modified to levy tax under s.115BAA on the basis that Form 10-IC had been filed within time (para 15). It arises in Deductions & Disallowances, Appeals and Assessment & Scrutiny matters, on section 115BAA, section 115BAA(5), section 119(2)(b), section 139(1), section 139(4), section 143(1) of the Income Tax Act 1961, and was decided by B.P. Colabawalla J and Firdosh P. Pooniwalla J. Before relying on it, read the source linked on this page and check whether it has since been distinguished, overruled or overtaken by an amendment to the Income Tax Act. In practice the steps that follow from it are these. If the application has been rejected for breach of condition (a) of Circular No. 6/2022 or 19/2023, take that as the primary ground and add the alternative — that even outside the circular the Board must exercise its s.119(2)(b) power on the merits. Put the hardship on affidavit with particulars: what prevented the filing, who was responsible, how long the delay was, and whether the year in question was the first year of the form. Bare assertion is what the Board rejected here. Show that the option was in substance exercised — the tax computation in the return, the 'Filing Status' field in Part A-GEN of ITR-6, and clause 8(a) of the tax audit report all speak to intent. Ask for the same consequential relief: not merely condonation, but a direction that the completed assessment be modified to levy tax under s.115BAA on the footing that Form 10-IC was filed in time. Watch the outer limit. Circular No. 17/2024 provides that no condonation application for Form 10-IC or Form 10-ID shall be entertained beyond three years from the end of the relevant assessment year — a point set out in the entry on Royal LED Equipments.
Validity check could not be completed. Validity check could not be completed. The judgment is of April 2026 and I did not search for any appeal or later treatment. It follows two earlier decisions of the same Court, Gem Nuts & Produce Exports and Rama Industries, neither of which I read in its own report. The line is consistent with the Gujarat High Court's decisions in V.M. Procon Pvt. Ltd. and Royal LED Equipments and with a substantial body of Tribunal authority, but the specific proposition that timely filing of the return is not a condition precedent under s.115BAA cuts against the express terms of the Board's own circulars and should be expected to be contested. No source could be cited for that finding. Checking whether an authority still stands matters as much as knowing what it held: a decision may be overruled on one point and survive on another, or the provision it interprets may have been amended since. Read the source and the editor's note on this page before relying on it in a reply to an Assessing Officer or in an appeal.
Paragraph 10 of the judgment records counsel's submission as referring to 'Section 115BBA' where s.115BAA is plainly meant; that typographical error is in the report. The judgment quotes at length from this Court's decisions in Gem Nuts & Produce Exports Co. (P.) Ltd. v. PCIT and Rama Industries Ltd. v. PCIT, identifying them by commercial-reporter citation strings printed in the judgment itself; I did not read either. The Gem Nuts passage quoted at para 13 refers to Circular No. 19/2023 although the circular in issue in this case is Circular No. 6/2022 — the two carry materially the same three conditions for their respective assessment years. The order is 'P.C.' (per curiam) and short; the reasoning is at paras 12 to 14. Read once from the indiankanoon print view, which returned the raw judgment with the Bombay High Court's uploading and digital-signature furniture. This library shows the verification state of every entry openly. This entry has not yet been read in full by a chartered accountant. The summary reflects the sources listed on this page. Read the source before you rely on it in a reply to an Assessing Officer or in an appeal before the Commissioner (Appeals) or the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal.
Rule made absolute. Both grounds of rejection were rejected. On the first, although the petitioner had indeed not filed its return within the s.139(1) due date, there is no such requirement in s.115BAA for claiming the benefit of the section; filing the return within the s.139(1) date is not a condition precedent, and in any event non-fulfilment of the circular's conditions means only that the assessee is not entitled to the straightforward benefit of the circular, and does not deprive the Board of its power to condone delay under s.119(2)(b) dehors the circular (para 13, adopting the reasoning in Gem Nuts & Produce Exports). On the second, there was no reason to disbelieve that the delay of 23 days was caused by the pandemic and by the termination of employees in the finance and accounts department, and the fact that the return was subsequently filed on 31 March 2021 on the basis of draft accounts and a draft tax computation itself showed genuine hardship and bona fide delay; given the short delay and that 2020-21 was the first year of filing Form 10-IC, a lenient and liberal view was called for, which was the very reason the Board had issued Circular No. 6/2022 (para 14). The impugned order dated 3 July 2024 was quashed, the delay of 23 days condoned, and the already completed assessment directed to be modified to levy tax under s.115BAA on the basis that Form 10-IC had been filed within time (para 15).
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