An order issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, as F. No. 225/98/2020-ITA-II, dated 5 July 2021. Issued under section 119.
The order that begins the long series of Board orders on stale refund returns. It relaxes 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 the department did not process within the statutory period, may still be processed and the refunds released. Every later order in the series works by extending the date this one first fixed.
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 relaxes the time-frame and directs that all validly filed returns up to assessment year 2017-18 with refund claims, which could not be processed within the prescribed time, may now be processed with prior administrative approval, with the intimation under section 143(1) to be sent by 30.09.2021 and the refund to follow in the ordinary way. Three classes of return are excluded: returns selected in scrutiny; returns left unprocessed where a demand is shown as payable in the return or is likely to arise on processing; and returns left unprocessed for any reason attributable to the assessee. Approval before processing is a condition, and the exclusions are the same set carried forward into every later order of the series.
A body of returns for old assessment years had never been processed, in most cases because of problems in the department's own systems, and the period for sending an intimation under section 143(1) had expired. The refunds claimed in them had become unpayable through no fault of the taxpayers, who had filed validly and on time. Section 119 permits the Board to relax that limitation to relieve genuine hardship, and this order does so for the first time in this line.
The order binds the department and lifts a restriction on it; it asks nothing of the assessee and gives him no right he can enforce, though a taxpayer whose return falls squarely within it may press the department to act. Neither the Tribunal nor a court is bound by it, and the reach of the second proviso to section 143(1) remains a question of statutory construction for them.
Issued in July 2021 for returns up to assessment year 2017-18. The intimation was to be sent by 30.09.2021, a date extended to 30.11.2021 on 30.09.2021 and later to 31.01.2024 and then 30.04.2024.
This is the parent order of the series and its conditions and exclusions were carried forward into all the later ones, so it must be read whenever a later extension is relied on. The exclusions are decisive: a return showing or likely to show a demand is outside it altogether. Prior administrative approval is a condition of processing and not a formality.
all validly filed returns up to assessment year 2017-18 with refund claims, which could not be processed
— the Central Board of Direct Taxes, order F. No. 225/98/2020-ITA-II, 5 July 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 |
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 day of the month was not legible in the text layer; the date is taken from the departmental listing. The file number was read from an imperfect text layer.