An order issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, as CIT (NaFAC)-1/2021-22/203, dated 29 June 2021. Issued under Explanation (i) to section 144B(1).
A one-line order of the National Faceless Assessment Centre designating the web portal through which faceless assessment is conducted. The Explanation to sub-section (1) of section 144B defines the designated portal as the portal designated by the Principal Chief Commissioner heading the National Faceless Assessment Centre. The department had just migrated to a new e-filing site, and this order names it, so that notices, responses and orders under section 144B pass through the correct portal.
This is an order of the Board. An order is issued under a power the Act itself gives the Board — most often section 119, which lets it direct its own officers and, in the cases the section names, relax a requirement. Read the enabling words before deciding how far it reaches: the power is administrative, and it cannot rewrite the charge.
Exercising the power in Explanation (i) to section 144B(1), the order designates www.incometax.gov.in as the designated portal for the purposes of faceless assessment. It records that it is issued with the approval of the Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-tax, National Faceless Assessment Centre, New Delhi, and it is signed by the Commissioner of Income-tax (NaFAC)-1. It does nothing else: it fixes no date for any step, alters no procedure and adds no exception to the scheme. Its whole effect is to identify the electronic address through which the section 144B process is to be conducted.
Section 144B works entirely through a designated portal: notices are served on it, responses are filed on it, and the electronic record of the assessment sits there. The section does not name the portal but leaves it to be designated. When the department replaced its old e-filing site with www.incometax.gov.in in June 2021, a fresh designation was needed, because without one the statutory machinery would have had no identified address to operate through.
The order binds the department's faceless machinery and settles where the process happens. It is not a Board order but one of the National Faceless Assessment Centre, made under a power the section gives that office. It gives the assessee no right, though it matters to him: a communication under section 144B is expected to come through this portal. It does not bind the Tribunal or a court.
Issued 29th June, 2021, following the migration to the new e-filing site. It has no end date and prescribes no deadline for anyone.
Note who issued this. It is an order of the National Faceless Assessment Centre under the Explanation to section 144B(1), not an order of the Board under section 119 or section 144B(2), so it belongs to a different line of authority from the exclusion orders. Note also that a designation of the portal says nothing about whether service through it was effective in a given case; that turns on section 282 and the rules.
www.incometax.gov.in as the 'designated portal' for the purpose of Faceless Assessment
— the Central Board of Direct Taxes, order CIT (NaFAC)-1/2021-22/203, 29 June 2021. Read it in the department’s own PDF.
| Under the Income-tax Act, 1961 | Now, in the Income-tax Act, 2025 |
|---|---|
| section 144B | section 273 |
The High Court quashed my s.148 notice because the ward officer issued it instead of the faceless unit. Does that judgment still stand?
The faceless order came without any show-cause notice or draft order. Will it just be annulled?
I did not tick s.115BAA in the return and filed Form 10-IC late. Can I still get the concessional rate?
The faceless show-cause notice gave me four days to reply. Is that enough time?
I asked for a personal hearing in the faceless assessment and was refused. Does the order survive?
Can a faceless order stand if the mandatory procedure was skipped?
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 document carries no subject line; it is headed simply as an order.