A set of guidelines issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, as F. No. 225/61/2021/ITA-II, dated 10 June 2021.
The Board's annual guidelines telling its officers which returns must be taken up for complete scrutiny in the financial year 2021-22, quite apart from computer-assisted selection. They set out five parameters, say who is to conduct the assessment under each — the jurisdictional assessing officer, the Central Charges or the National Faceless Assessment Centre — and fix the date by which selection and service of the notice under section 143(2) must be finished.
These are guidelines. Where a section says the Board may issue guidelines and that they bind, guidelines carry more weight than an ordinary administrative direction — so read the enabling words before deciding which kind these are.
Five parameters are prescribed. Survey cases under section 133A are selected, except where books of account and documents were not impounded and the returned income (disclosure made during the survey apart) is not less than that of the preceding assessment year. Search and seizure cases assessed under sections 153A and 153C read with section 143(3) are selected; where impounded or seized material exists the case moves to the Central Charges under section 127, otherwise to the faceless centre. Cases in which a notice under section 142(1) or under section 148 has issued are selected, the route turning on whether a return was filed and whether the information came from the non-filers monitoring system, AIR data or a law enforcement agency. So are cases where registration or approval under provisions such as sections 12A, 35(1) and 10(23C) has been refused, cancelled or withdrawn and the exemption is still claimed. Cases selected by the International Taxation and Central Circle charges stay there.
Faceless assessment moved most scrutiny to the National Faceless Assessment Centre, but some classes of case cannot sensibly be picked by a computer or run at a distance — survey and search cases, cases where a notice has already gone out, cases where an exemption has been refused or withdrawn. The Board therefore issues guidelines each year identifying those classes, so that selection is uniform across charges and every officer knows where the case is to be assessed.
These are directions to the department's officers on how to select and route cases, and it is the officers they bind. No assessee acquires a right to be left out of scrutiny because his case falls outside a parameter, and guidelines of the Board cannot cut down the statutory power to issue a notice under section 143(2). The Tribunal and the courts are not bound by them either.
For the financial year 2021-22. Selection and service of the notice under section 143(2) were to be completed by 30.06.2021, the Finance Act, 2021 having reduced the time for that notice to three months from the end of the financial year in which the return is filed.
Read the survey exclusion on both limbs — no impounding and returned income not below the previous year's; one alone will not do. Watch the routing as well, because whether the case moves to the Central Charges under section 127 or stays with the faceless centre decides who you deal with. And 30.06.2021 is an internal deadline; the limitation for a notice under section 143(2) is in the Act.
cases which are selected for compulsory scrutiny by the International Taxation and Central Circle charges … shall, as earlier, continue to be handled by these charges.
— the Central Board of Direct Taxes, guidelines F. No. 225/61/2021/ITA-II, 10 June 2021. Read it in the department’s own PDF.
| Under the Income-tax Act, 1961 | Now, in the Income-tax Act, 2025 |
|---|---|
| section 143 | section 270 |
| section 133A | section 253, section 261 |
| section 153A | no counterpart recorded |
| section 153C | no counterpart recorded |
| section 148 | section 280 |
| section 142 | section 268 |
| section 127 | section 243 |
We charge fees for our public utility work. Does that cost us charitable status under s.2(15)?
Is a notice under s.143(2) a jurisdictional precondition, or merely a procedural step the Assessing Officer can skip?
My return was only processed under 143(1). Does that stop the department reopening it later?
The Income-tax Officer examined witnesses behind my back and used their statements against me. Is that material evidence at all?
No s.143(2) notice was issued at all. Does s.292BB save the assessment?
The company I represent amalgamated years ago, the department knew about it, and the assessment order still came in the old company's name. Is that order void, or can the department call it a curable slip?
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 parameters in paragraph 2 were read in substance but their sub-clauses could not be reproduced word for word; the quote is abridged where marked.