An instruction issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, as F. No. 275/29/2020-IT(B), dated 19 January 2021. Issued under section 119.
A short clarification from the IT-Budget division of the Board on its order under section 119 dated 19th October, 2020, which regulated intrusive and coercive recovery action by assessing officers and tax recovery officers. That order required the prior approval of the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner concerned before movable or immovable property was attached. The field asked how far the approval requirement reached, and this document answers.
This is an instruction to the department's own officers. It tells them how to do something — which cases to take up, what to check, how to record it. It is an internal direction, and its whole force runs downwards inside the department.
The Board clarifies that the prior approval of the Principal Commissioner, Principal Director, Commissioner or Director concerned is required for a requisition under section 226(2) and for the issue of a notice under section 226(3) of the Income-tax Act, 1961. The approval condition in the order of 19th October, 2020 is therefore not confined to attachment of property under the Second Schedule; it extends to the garnishee-type routes in section 226 as well — a requisition to an employer to deduct arrears out of salary under sub-section (2), and a notice to a person holding money for or owing money to the assessee under sub-section (3). The PDF carries this clarification together with the order of 19.10.2020 and the modification of 4th January, 2021 on the collegium mechanism.
Recovery officers had been given a hierarchy of approvals for intrusive action in October 2020, but that order spoke of recovery surveys and of attachment. Section 226 offers quicker routes — taking arrears out of a salary, or reaching money in a bank's or a debtor's hands. Left unaddressed, those routes could have been used with no approval at all, which would have hollowed out the October order. The Board closed the gap.
The clarification governs the department's own recovery machinery: the assessing officer and the tax recovery officer must take approval before acting under section 226(2) or 226(3). The assessee is not bound by it and takes no statutory right from it, though he may point to it where a recovery step was taken without the approval. It does not bind the Tribunal or a court.
Dated 19th January, 2021, clarifying the position under the order of 19th October, 2020 and operating from issue.
The approval is internal and will not appear on the notice served on the garnishee, so where a bank account has been attached under section 226(3) it is worth asking whether the Principal Commissioner's approval was in fact taken. Bear in mind that the requirement is a direction of the Board and not a condition written into section 226, so an absent approval is a matter to be pressed, not automatic invalidity.
the prior approval of Pr. CIT/Pr. DIT/CIT/DIT concerned shall be required for requisition u/s 226(2) and issuance of notice u/s 226(3) of the Income-tax Act, 1961.
— the Central Board of Direct Taxes, instruction F. No. 275/29/2020-IT(B), 19 January 2021. Read it in the department’s own PDF.
| Under the Income-tax Act, 1961 | Now, in the Income-tax Act, 2025 |
|---|---|
| section 226 | section 416 |
| section 119 | section 239 |
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What here is the Board’s and what is ours. The document is the Central Board of Direct Taxes’ own. Its number, its date and the words quoted above are reproduced from the Board’s own PDF, which is here. Everything else on this page is ours: the plain-English account of what the document is and what it does, the reading of which provision it turns on, the note on what to watch, and the choice of cases. Where our account and the document part, the document governs.
An order of the Board binds the department, not you and not a court. The Board writes to its own officers. An assessee may hold the department to an order or an instruction 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. This is the most common mistake made with this material, and it is worth making twice: a direction of the Board is not a section of the Act.
What we could not settle. The PDF bundles three documents — the order of 19.10.2020, the modification of 04.01.2021 on the collegium mechanism, and this clarification. Only the clarification is described here.