The officer says reasonable cause under s.273B is not available to me. Which penalties does the section actually reach, and who has to prove what?
s.273B is a non obstante provision that bars a penalty under the provisions it names if the person proves reasonable cause. Two things are commonly got wrong: the burden is on the assessee, who must prove the cause, not on the officer to disprove it; and the section reaches only the penalties it lists. Concealment under s.271(1)(c) is outside it, under-reporting and misreporting under s.270A is outside it, and under the 1961 Act s.271DA carries its own separate escape rather than relying on s.273B.
The operative words are short. Section 273B opens with "Notwithstanding anything contained in the provisions of" a list of penalty provisions, and then says that "no penalty shall be imposable on the person or the assessee, as the case may be, for any failure referred to in the said provisions if he proves that there was reasonable cause for the said failure". Two consequences follow from that wording and both are regularly reversed in circulation.
First, the burden. The section does not say that a penalty shall not be imposed unless the officer finds there was no reasonable cause. It says no penalty shall be imposable if he proves that there was reasonable cause. Proof is the assessee's, and it is proof, not assertion — what caused the failure, why it was outside the assessee's control, and, usually, that the department lost nothing by it. A reply that pleads reasonable cause without producing the correspondence, the auditor's engagement, the seizure memo or the medical record has not discharged anything. The corpus holds the Kerala High Court's reading of the phraseology as peremptory once the cause is established, and Hindustan Steel for the older and wider proposition that a penalty is not a consequence of the levy being permitted.
Second, the reach. Section 273B is not a general equity. It operates only on the provisions it names, and the opening reference is to clause (b) of sub-section (1) of section 271 — the failure to comply with a notice — not to clause (c), which is concealment or furnishing inaccurate particulars. Penalty for concealment therefore has never been answerable by a s.273B plea; the arguments there are the ones in Reliance Petroproducts and in the defective-notice line, both already in this library. Nor does s.273B name s.270A: under-reporting and misreporting are met by the exceptions written into s.270A itself and by the immunity route in s.270AA, not by reasonable cause. And s.271DA, the penalty for receiving cash in contravention of s.269ST, carries its own escape in its own proviso — "no penalty shall be imposable if such person proves that there were good and sufficient reasons for the contravention" — which is a different formula from reasonable cause and sits in a different place.
The list itself has to be read off the current text before it is relied on. The two departmental pages fetched for this note print a list running from clause (b) of sub-section (1) of section 271 through sections 271A, 271B, 271BB, 271C, 271D, 271E, section 272A(1)(c) and (d) and 272A(2), 272AA(1), 272BB(1) and clause (b) of sub-section (1) and clauses (b) and (c) of sub-section (2) of section 273; one of the two also prints section 271F. Neither page shows the later insertions — s.271AA, s.271FA and others — that Tribunal decisions in this library have proceeded on as being covered. So the department's own section pages are not a safe list; check the bare Act for the penalty you are actually facing.
Under the Income-tax Act 2025 the corresponding provision is section 470, and its text is current and closed: "Irrespective of anything contained in the provisions of section 441 or 442 or 446 or 447 or 448 or 449 or 450 or 451 or 452 or 453 or 454 or 455 or 456 or 457 or 458 or 459 or 460 or 461 or 462 or 463 or 465(1)(c) or 465(1)(d) or 465(2) or 466 or 467 or 468, no penalty shall be imposed on a person or assessee for any failure referred to in the said provisions, if he proves that there was reasonable cause for the said failure." The department's section-mapping navigator puts s.270A at section 439, which is not in that list, so the exclusion of under-reporting and misreporting survives the recodification. Against s.271 the navigator records no successor at all — its row reads "Failure to furnish returns, comply with notices, concealment of income, etc." against "Redundant" — so there is no concealment penalty under the 2025 Act to which reasonable cause could be pleaded. Section 443 of the 2025 Act is a different provision, "Penalty in respect of certain income", which the navigator gives as the counterpart of s.271AAC and not of s.271(1)(c). The mapping also puts s.271DA at section 451, which is in the list, so under the new Act the cash-receipt penalty is brought inside the reasonable-cause provision rather than left to its own proviso. That is a change, and it is worth checking against the text of section 451 before it is relied on.
Reasonable cause is the only general defence in Chapter XXI, and it is pleaded in almost every penalty reply. Getting the two halves wrong is expensive in opposite directions: assessees plead it against s.271(1)(c) and s.270A where it is not available and lose the arguments that were available; and they plead it where it is available without proving anything, which lets the officer record that no cause was established. The list also moved on recodification, so a 2025-Act penalty and a 1961-Act penalty are not answered the same way.
You took a cash loan and now face penalty equal to the whole amount. Is there any relief?
The penalty provision was made harsher after my assessment year but before I filed the return. Which version applies to my concealment penalty?
Valuables were found at my premises and I say they are not mine. Who has to prove ownership?
My explanation for a cash deposit was rejected in the assessment and an addition was made — does that by itself mean penalty for concealment follows?
Is penalty under s.271(1)(c) criminal, quasi-criminal or civil?
My return declared a loss and even after the addition the assessed figure is still a loss. Can concealment penalty under section 271(1)(c) be levied when no tax is payable?
The addition only reduced my returned loss and I still have no tax to pay for the year. Can the Assessing Officer levy concealment penalty for a year before 2003-04?
The assessment in which the s.271E satisfaction was recorded has been set aside. Can the penalty stand?
Every page in this library links to what it was written from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.