An order issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, as F. No. 370153/39/2020-TPL, dated 11 January 2021. Issued under section 119.
The Board's order under section 119 on the demand for a further extension of the due dates for filing returns and tax audit reports for assessment year 2020-21. It was passed after the Gujarat High Court, by its judgment of 8th January, 2021, directed the Ministry of Finance to examine the question. The order sets out the extensions already granted, compares them with the position in other countries, and refuses to go any further.
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 order recites the three rounds of extension already granted for assessment year 2020-21: for non-audit returns from 31.07.2020 to 30.11.2020, then 31.12.2020, then 10.01.2021; for tax audit reports from 30.09.2020 to 31.10.2020, then 31.12.2020, then 15.01.2021; and for returns in audit cases from 31.10.2020 to 30.11.2020, then 31.01.2021, then 15.02.2021. Paragraph 7 carries a table of due dates in nine other countries, on which the Board records that no other country has extended its due dates as much as India. The Board reasons that filing returns and audit reports is part of an assessee's obligations, that collections fund relief work for the vulnerable, that filing figures already exceed the previous year's, and that a further extension would damage filing discipline and penalise the compliant. Citing Supreme Court authority that a cut-off date fixed by the executive is not to be interfered with unless blatantly discriminatory or arbitrary, it rejects the representations.
Representations for a further extension had been pressed throughout the pandemic and had reached the High Courts. The Gujarat High Court directed the Ministry to consider the matter and take a decision. This order is that response: instead of a fresh extension, the Board puts its reasons for stopping where it stopped on the record, so that the refusal is a reasoned one capable of being tested.
The order is the Board's own decision on how it will use section 119, and it settles the department's position; officers must work to the extended dates as they stand. It does not bind the assessee, who remains free to argue that the refusal was arbitrary, and it plainly does not bind a High Court or the Tribunal — the order exists because a High Court asked for one.
Dated 11th January, 2021. The dates left standing for assessment year 2020-21 are 10.01.2021 for non-audit returns, 15.01.2021 for tax audit reports and 15.02.2021 for returns in audit cases. Corrected by the corrigendum of 12.01.2021.
The order refuses an extension; it says nothing about interest. Section 234A is not discussed in it, so relief from the due date and relief from interest remain separate questions. Read it with the corrigendum of 12th January, 2021, which corrects two rows of the comparative table. And treat it as the Board's answer to a court direction rather than as any kind of concession.
In view of the above reasons, all the representations for further extension of the due date are hereby rejected.
— the Central Board of Direct Taxes, order F. No. 370153/39/2020-TPL, 11 January 2021. 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 |
| section 139 | section 2, section 263, section 349 |
| section 44AB | section 2, section 58, section 63 |
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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.
We did not read all of it. The department’s file returned only part of this document to us, so what is written above is written from the part we could read. Open the PDF before you rely on it.
What we could not settle. Paragraphs 5 and 6 were not transcribed. The table at paragraph 7 was read in substance rather than reproduced in full.