Circular No. 354

Circular : No. 354 [F. No. 309/58/82-ED], dated 18-3-1983

What this is

Circular No. 354 was issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes on 18 March 1983. Its subject is Circular : No. 354 [F. No. 309/58/82-ED], dated 18-3-1983.

What it does

Accepts the decision of the Madras High Court in G.D. Narendra v. CED [1972] 85 ITR 647, which held that relief under section 50 in respect of court fee paid cannot be refused merely because the time limit in section 61 for rectifying an estate duty assessment has run out. The reasoning the circular records is that section 50 casts a statutory obligation on the Controller to allow such relief, which does not depend on the rectification machinery being available.

Why it was issued

To communicate the Board's acceptance of the High Court's decision so that officers follow it rather than resist the claim on limitation.

Who it reaches

Accountable persons in estate duty assessments who had paid court fee
Controllers of Estate Duty dealing with claims for that relief after the section 61 period had expired

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 Act	Now
s.50	s.74
s.61	s.97

The instrument, as the Board published it

The department publishes this one only as a PDF, so the words below were read out of that PDF by machine. That reading can carry its own mistakes — a misread number, a broken line. Check the signed document before you rely on a figure in it. The reading also stopped short of the end of the document: what is below is the opening, not the whole of it.

Circular : No. 354 [F. No. 309/58/82-ED], dated 18-3-1983
1. The Madras High Court has, in the case of G.D. Narendra v. CED [1972] 85 ITR 647, held that
relief under section 50 in respect of court fee paid, cannot be denied solely on the ground that the
limitation under section 61 for rectification of estate duty assessment has expired. Section 50 casts a
statutory obligation upon the Controller to allow such

The Board have accepted the Madras High Court decision.

What to watch

The point is narrow: it is about the limitation in section 61 not defeating the section 50 relief, and says nothing about the amount or the conditions of that relief.
The circular is very short and the text available here breaks off mid-sentence in the account of the obligation cast by section 50, before anything further the Board may have directed.
It concerns the estate duty legislation, not the Income-tax Act, and belongs to a period long past.

Where you meet it

In an old estate duty file where relief for court fee was refused as time-barred under section 61.

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.

Notification No. 117/2025 [F. No. 149/144/2015-TPL-Part(2)] / S.O. 3268(E) — Ministry of Finance 17 July 2025
Notification No. 67/2018 [F.No.149/144/2015-TPL(Pt.IV)] / SO 5323(E) — Ministry of Finance 16 October 2018
Circular No. 353 — Section 50 l Relief Where Court FEE HAS Been Paid 2 February 1983
Notification No. 28 — Income-tax (Sixth Amendment) Rules, 2009 - Insertion of rule 37BA and 37-I 16 March 2009

← Circular No. 358 · Circular No. 356 →

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.