Rule 147 — Publication and circulation of order of Board under section 239(3)(a). Made under s.239 of the Income-tax Act, 2025.
Rule 147 gives effect to Section 239 of the Income-tax Act, 2025. A rule cannot go beyond the section it serves: where the two seem to differ, the section governs.
The rule prescribes how a general or special order of the Board issued under section 239(3)(a) is to be published and circulated, where the Board is of opinion that publication and circulation is necessary in the public interest. It is to be done in one or more of four modes: publication of the order in the Official Gazette; dispatching copies to Chambers of Commerce and other trade or professional associations which are for the time being borne on the mailing list of the Board; displaying copies on the notice board of the office of every Chief Commissioner or Commissioner or Joint Commissioner and Assessing Officer; and uploading copies on the official website of the Income Tax Department and circulation through official social media handles or other digital outreach platforms maintained by the Department.
An order under section 239(3)(a) can affect assessees generally, and the Act leaves open how it is to be made known. The rule supplies the channels and makes the choice among them a matter for the Board, subject to its own opinion that publication is necessary in the public interest. The four modes range from the formal to the practical, so that an order can reach both the record and the people it affects.
The modes are alternatives, not a sequence: the rule says one or more of them, so an order circulated by one mode is validly circulated and a reader cannot assume that every order under section 239(3)(a) appears in the Official Gazette. Publication is also conditional on the Board's own opinion that it is necessary in the public interest, so the rule does not require every such order to be published at all. The digital mode in clause (d) is a single composite mode — the official website together with circulation through official social media handles or other digital outreach platforms maintained by the Department.
The Board issues a general order under section 239(3)(a) affecting a class of assessees and forms the opinion that the public interest requires it to be known. It may publish the order in the Official Gazette alone, or dispatch copies only to the trade associations on its mailing list, or upload it on the Department's official website with circulation through the Department's official social media handles; any one of these answers the rule.
A reader meets the rule indirectly, in the fact that an order under section 239(3)(a) has come to notice through the Gazette, a trade association circular, a notice board in an income-tax office, or the Department's website or official social media handles.
shall be published and circulated in one or more of the following modes
uploading the copies of the order in the official website of the Income Tax Department and, circulation through official social media handles or other digital outreach platforms maintained by the Department