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 is the single largest limitation question in transfer pricing assessments, and the Supreme Court split on it in August 2025 and referred it to a larger bench.
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. The compression problem is real: where the TPO order comes shortly before the s.153 date, the nine-month Panel period becomes impossible to use.
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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