An order issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, as F.No.225/195/2016/ITA.II, dated 29 July 2016. Issued under section 119(1).
An order of the Central Board of Direct Taxes under section 119(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, F.No.225/195/2016/ITA.II, issued from North Block on 29 July 2016. The due date of filing income-tax returns for certain categories of taxpayers for assessment year 2016-17 was 31 July 2016, which fell on a Sunday. To let taxpayers file on the last day and the day before it, the Board directs that income-tax offices throughout the country receive returns on Saturday 30 July and Sunday 31 July 2016 during normal working hours.
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.
The Board directs that necessary arrangements be made for receiving income-tax returns in all income-tax offices throughout the country on 30 and 31 July 2016, during the normal working hours. It adds that special arrangements may also be made, by way of opening additional receipt counters wherever required, on those two days, so that taxpayers file their returns of income without inconvenience. The order asks that the instruction be given wide publicity, and it is marked to all cadre-controlling Principal Chief Commissioners for necessary action in their regions and to the systems and publicity wings for hosting and circulation. It does not touch the due date itself.
The due date of 31 July 2016 fell on a Sunday, and the day before it was a Saturday. Returns handed in over the counter would otherwise have had nowhere to go on the last two days available. Rather than move the date, the Board kept the offices open and told the field to add counters where the load required it. The power used is section 119(1), under which the Board issues orders and directions to income-tax authorities for the proper administration of the Act.
It binds the income-tax department: cadre-controlling Principal Chief Commissioners had to make the arrangements in their regions. It does not bind the taxpayer, and it does not bind a court or the Tribunal. What a taxpayer got from it was practical rather than legal - an open counter on 30 and 31 July 2016, and not one extra day.
30 and 31 July 2016, during normal working hours. The order is dated 29 July 2016 and spent itself on those two days.
Read this for what it is not. The due date of 31 July 2016 was not extended, and nothing here helps a return filed on 1 August 2016. The order is spent, and it is of use now only as a precedent for what the Board does when a due date falls on a holiday.
hereby directs that necessary arrangements be made for receiving income tax returns in all income-tax offices throughout the country on these days, during the normal working hours
— the Central Board of Direct Taxes, order F.No.225/195/2016/ITA.II, 29 July 2016. Read it in the department’s own PDF.
| Under the Income-tax Act, 1961 | Now, in the Income-tax Act, 2025 |
|---|---|
| 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 scan renders '31st July' as '315* July' and garbles the superscripts on the other dates; the days, 30 and 31 July 2016, are clear from the body of the order and from the department's listing. The signature block is legible.