Instruction No. 2/2016

Passing rectification order under section 154 of Income-tax Act, 1961

What this is

Instruction No. 2/2016 was issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes on 15 February 2016. Its subject is Passing rectification order under section 154 of Income-tax Act, 1961.

The instrument itself

The text, read by machine from the scan

This is not the department’s typed text. The department published this one as a scanned image of a signed paper, so there is no text in the file to copy. What follows was read off that image by optical character recognition and is reproduced without correction — the mistakes you can see are the machine’s, and there may be others you cannot. It is here so the document can be found and read; it is not a substitute for the file, which is linked below. Do not quote from this page.

Instruction No. 6Z,j2016
Government of India
Ministry of Finance
Department of Revenue
Central Board of Direct Taxes
North Block, New Delhi, the 15°" of February, 2016
Subject: Passing rectification order under section 154 Income-tax Act, 1961 -regd.-

Instances have come to the notice of the Board that in some cases rectification order under section 154 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (‘Act’) is being passed by the Assessing Officer on AST System without giving copy of the order to the taxpayer concerned. This is causing grievance to the taxpayers as they remain unaware of such orders and consequentially, are unable to pursue the matter further, either in appeal or rectification, if required.

2. Sub-section (4) of section 154 of the Act mandates that rectification order shall be passed in writing by the Income-tax authorities. Therefore, on consideration of the matter, the Board hereby directs that all rectification applications must be disposed of after passing an order in writing, to be duly served upon the taxpayer concerned and not by merely making necessary rectification on the AST System.
3. The contents of this Instruction may be brought to the notice of all for necessary compliance.
4. Hindi version to follow.
(Rohit Garg)

Deputy Secretary to the Government of India (F.No. 225/305/2015-ITA.II)
Copy to:

1. Chairman and all Members of CBDT

2. PS/OSD to Secretary (Revenue)

3. O/o Pr.Director General of Income Tax (Systems) with request for uploading on official website in public domain

4. All Pr.Chief-Commissioners/Directors-General of Income-tax

5. All Officers and Technical Sections of CBDT

6. — ITCC Division of CBDT (3 copies)

7. Addl./Jt. CIT Database Cell for uploading on IRS Officers website

8. ADG(PR,PP&OL) with request to post a tweet on official handle of the Department

9. Guard File

(Rohit Garg)
Deputy Secretary to the Government of India

Source: the department’s scanned file.

← Instruction No. 1/2016 · Circular No. 24/2015 →

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.