Section 153 fixes the outer date for completing an assessment, while s.144C prescribes its own sequence of periods for the draft order, objections, Panel directions and the final order. Whether the s.144C periods run inside or beyond the s.153 date was the single largest limitation question in transfer pricing assessments: the Supreme Court split on it in August 2025 and referred it to a larger bench, and Parliament then answered it. Section 8 of the Finance Act, 2026 inserted s.144C(4A), (4B), (13A) and (13B), each opening notwithstanding any judgment, order or decree of any court and each reaching back to 2009, so that where the draft order is forwarded within the s.153 time the s.144C periods govern everything that follows.
Under s.153 an assessment must ordinarily be completed within twelve months from the end of the assessment year, extended to twenty-four months where a reference is made to the Transfer Pricing Officer, with a separate period for assessments made afresh after a Tribunal order. The s.144C route adds a draft order, thirty days for objections, up to nine months for the Panel to issue directions and one month for the final order, so roughly eleven further months. The Madras High Court in CIT v Roca Bathroom Products and the Bombay High Court in Shelf Drilling held s.153 is not excluded by s.144C: DRP proceedings remain circumscribed by the limits of time, and s.144C(13) works only to compel a prompt final order. Tribunal benches had earlier taken the opposite view, treating s.144C as a self-contained scheme. On 8 August 2025 a two-judge bench in ACIT v Shelf Drilling Ron Tappmeyer (2025 INSC 946) divided, one judge holding s.153 governs only up to the draft order and the other holding the whole s.144C process must finish inside it; the matter went to the Chief Justice for a larger bench. Section 8 of the Finance Act, 2026 then answered the question by statute. Sub-section (4A) opens "Notwithstanding anything contained in any judgment, order or decree of any court, or section 153" and clarifies, for the purposes of sub-section (4), that where a draft of the proposed order of assessment under sub-section (1) is forwarded within the time period allowed under section 153, the further time available to the Assessing Officer to complete the assessment under sub-section (3) "shall be governed and shall always be deemed to have been governed by the provisions of sub-section (4)". Sub-section (4B) is the same with section 153B. Sub-section (13A) does the same for sub-section (13), so that where the draft is forwarded within the section 153 time the period for passing the order on receipt of the Panel's direction is governed, and always deemed to have been governed, by sub-sections (12) and (13); sub-section (13B) is (13A) with section 153B. Sub-sections (4A) and (13A) are deemed inserted with effect from 1 April 2009 and (4B) and (13B) with effect from 1 October 2009. Section 12 of the same Act inserted section 153(10), also retrospective from 1 April 2009. So the answer now turns on one fact: was the draft order forwarded within the time allowed under section 153? If it was, the s.144C periods run and the s.153 outer date does not cut them short, whatever the High Court decisions say, and the reference to the larger bench has been overtaken. If the draft order itself went out after the section 153 date had expired, none of the four new sub-sections reaches the case, because each operates only on a draft forwarded in time. The compression problem is unchanged: where the TPO order comes shortly before the s.153 date, the draft order has to be forwarded in the days that remain, and that date is now the date everything depends on.
Has the Supreme Court settled whether the s.144C nine-month DRP process runs over and above the s.153 limitation?
The DRP issued its directions years ago and the Assessing Officer has still not passed a final assessment order. Is the assessment now dead, or can he pass one whenever he likes?
I hold a valid TRC. Can the AO go behind it and reopen my assessment for lack of substance?
The Transfer Pricing Officer has put Infosys into my comparables. I am a small captive software unit working only for my parent - can I get it thrown out?
Are proceedings before the Dispute Resolution Panel outside the ordinary limitation for completing an assessment?
A different Assessing Officer finished my assessment from where the last one left off, without offering me a rehearing. Does s.129 give me a right he was bound to offer?
Our amalgamation was sanctioned by the NCLT after we had already filed the return, and the AO is pressing on with the assessment on that pre-merger return. Does s.170A stop him?
You are an eligible assessee with a transfer pricing adjustment and the faceless unit passed a final order instead of a draft. What relief will the court give?
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