An order issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, as F. No. 225/98/2020-ITA-II, dated 30 September 2021. Issued under section 119.
A short order of the Board under section 119 doing one thing: extending the date fixed by its own earlier order of 5th July, 2021. That order had relaxed the time limit in the second proviso to section 143(1) so that validly filed returns up to assessment year 2017-18 carrying refund claims, which had gone past the date for an intimation, could still be processed. The date it set was 30th September, 2021, and the work was not finished by then.
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 Board's order of 05.07.2021, which directed that validly filed returns up to assessment year 2017-18 with refund claims, which could not be processed within the prescribed time, might be processed with prior administrative approval, and which fixed 30.09.2021 for sending the intimation under section 143(1). Exercising its power under section 119, the Board further extends that time-frame from 30.09.2021 to 30.11.2021. It records in terms that all other contents of the order of 05.07.2021 remain unchanged, so the requirement of prior approval and the exclusions for scrutiny cases, demand cases and delays attributable to the assessee continue to apply. The order closes by directing circulation for compliance.
The relaxation given in July 2021 had a working window of under three months, and it fell in the period when the department was moving to a new e-filing portal. The volume of old unprocessed refund returns could not be cleared in the time allowed, and letting the order lapse would have left the refunds permanently unpayable because the statutory period had already expired. Section 119 permits the Board to relax the limit to relieve genuine hardship, so it simply moved the date.
This is a direction to the department and to nobody else. It enlarges the window within which the department may act; it lays no obligation on an assessee and gives him no right he could enforce, though a person whose return is within the class may fairly ask the department to act under it. It does not bind the Tribunal or a court, which read the provisos to section 143(1) as they stand.
Issued 30th September, 2021. It covers validly filed returns up to assessment year 2017-18 and moves the date for the intimation from 30.09.2021 to 30.11.2021, itself later moved to 31.01.2024 by the order of 16.10.2023.
Every condition of substance is in the order of 5th July, 2021 and has to be read with this one, which changes only the date. The relaxation reaches no further than assessment year 2017-18. And an extension of the department's own window is not an extension of any period available to the assessee, nor does it revive a refund claim that failed for a reason attributable to him.
All other contents of the said order u/s 119 of the Act dated 05.07.2021 will remain unchanged
— the Central Board of Direct Taxes, order F. No. 225/98/2020-ITA-II, 30 September 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 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.