An order issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, as F. No. 225/194/2019/ITA-II, dated 11 August 2019. Issued under section 119.
An order under section 119 relaxing the time limit for processing returns. A return has to be processed under section 143(1) and the intimation served within the period fixed by the second proviso to that sub-section; once that period runs out the return cannot be processed at all and a genuine refund is lost through no fault of the assessee. The Board lifts that bar for a defined set of old returns carrying refund claims and fixes a fresh outer date for the processing.
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 in the second proviso to section 143(1) and allows validly filed returns up to assessment year 2017-18 that carry a refund claim, and which remain unprocessed only because the time limit expired, to be processed now. The intimation under section 143(1) is to be sent to the assessee by 31 December 2019. The relaxation is not automatic: prior administrative approval of the Principal Chief Commissioner or Chief Commissioner concerned is required. Three classes fall outside it — returns of an earlier year selected for scrutiny and covered by section 143(1D), returns that show or are likely to result in a demand, and returns left unprocessed for reasons attributable to the assessee.
Returns of earlier years sometimes go unprocessed for technical or administrative reasons. Where such a return claims a refund, the expiry of the processing period leaves the assessee holding a valid claim with no way to have it paid, and the grievance keeps returning to the department. Section 119 lets the Board relax a time limit of this kind to remove hardship, and it does so here for the older years in one stroke rather than case by case.
The order runs to the Board's officers and to the processing machinery; it is their authority to process what would otherwise be time-barred. It gives the assessee no enforceable right to have his return processed, but it is a relaxation in his favour and he may press the department to act on it, since the department cannot disown its own Board's order. It decides nothing for the Tribunal or a court.
Covers returns up to assessment year 2017-18. The intimation under section 143(1) must be sent by 31 December 2019.
The relaxation stops at assessment year 2017-18 and at returns claiming a refund; a demand case gets nothing from it. The prior approval of the Pr.CCIT or CCIT is a condition and not a formality. And a return left unprocessed because the assessee did not do something — verification, for instance — is expressly outside the order.
Board, by virtue of its powers under section 119 of the Act, hereby relaxes the time-frame prescribed in second proviso to sub-section (1) of section 143
— the Central Board of Direct Taxes, order F. No. 225/194/2019/ITA-II, 11 August 2019. 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 department lists this order under 5 August 2019; the date printed on the letter reads 11 August 2019 and that is the date recorded here. The paragraph numbering and the closing paragraph were read in summary. The F. No. is transcribed from a scan that renders some separators imperfectly.