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Case law › Circulars › 1981 › Circular No. 297
CBDT circular 10 April 1981

Circular No. 297

Sections 139 to 156

What this is

Circular No. 297 was issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes on 10 April 1981. Its subject is Sections 139 to 156.

This is a clarification. The Board is stating how it reads a provision. That reading binds the department; it does not bind a court, and where the section says otherwise the section wins.

What it does

Cuts down the mass posting of return forms ordered a few days earlier. Circular No. 296 dated 31 March 1981 had asked Commissioners to have Income-tax Officers send two copies of the return forms by ordinary post to every assessee on the Department's register. This circular narrows that to two classes: assessees whose income, going by the latest return or assessment on the file, is above the taxable limit for assessment year 1981-82 or later years, and assessees claiming a refund under section 237.

Why it was issued

The blanket direction to post forms to everyone on the register was found too wide, and the Board limited it to those who would actually have to file or were claiming a refund.

Who it reaches

The provisions it speaks to

Left, the provision of the Income-tax Act, 1961 as the instrument itself names it. Right, the section of the Income-tax Act, 2025 that the department’s own concordance maps it to — which is where the same ground is now covered.
Under the 1961 ActNow
s.139s.2, s.263, s.349
s.237s.431

The instrument, as the Board published it

The words below are the department’s own, reproduced from its published text. Where the department’s copy carried a publisher’s notes after the instrument, those are not reproduced.

SECTIONS 139 TO 156
Procedure for assessment
SECTION 139 l RETURN OF INCOME
Sending blank return forms by post to all taxpayers existing on registers of department - Instructions in Circular Nos. 296 and 297 withdrawn
CIRCULAR NO. 297, DATED 10-4-1981 REFERRED TO IN CLARIFICATION
Reference is invited to Board’s Circular No. 296, dated 31-3-1981 by which the Commissioners were asked to direct the ITOs to send two copies of return forms, etc., to the assessees existing on the register of the Department by ordinary post. This direction is modified to the extent that return forms etc., should be sent only to those assessees whose income according to the latest return/assessment on the file is above the taxable limit applicable to the assessment year 1981-82 or later years, and also to assessees claiming refund under section 237.

What to watch

Where you meet it

Only in the departmental history of how return forms were circulated for assessment year 1981-82; it decides nothing in a proceeding.

On the same provision

Other instruments in this library that name the same provision of the 1961 Act. They are not necessarily still operative, and a later one may have replaced an earlier one without saying so.

← Circular No. 298  ·  Circular No. 290 →

A circular binds the department, not you and not a court. The Board issues a circular to its own officers. An assessee may hold the department to a circular that helps him; the department cannot hold an assessee to one that hurts him, and the Tribunal and the courts decide the law for themselves.

Source: the Income Tax Department’s own published text — its page for this instrument.