Rule 168 — Prescribed person for verification of return for purposes of section 265 [Table: Sl. Nos. 3 and 9]. Made under s.265 of the Income-tax Act, 2025.
Rule 168 gives effect to Section 265 of the Income-tax Act, 2025. A rule cannot go beyond the section it serves: where the two seem to differ, the section governs.
Sub-rule (1) fills in one expression. For the purpose of verification of a return under section 265 [Table: Sl. Nos. 3 and 9], "any other person" means the person appointed by the Adjudicating Authority for discharging the duties and functions of an interim resolution professional, a resolution professional, or a liquidator, as the case may be, under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 and the rules and regulations made under it.
Sub-rule (2) provides that "Adjudicating Authority" has the same meaning as in section 5(1) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016.
Section 265 names, for each class of assessee, who may verify the return, and at two entries in its Table leaves room for "any other person" to be prescribed. When a corporate debtor is in insolvency the directors or managing director who would ordinarily verify are displaced, and the return still has to be verified by someone with authority over the company's affairs. The rule names that person by reference to the appointment made by the Adjudicating Authority, so verification follows the insolvency process rather than the company's own now-suspended management.
The prescribed person is identified by appointment, not by designation in the company: it is the person the Adjudicating Authority appointed to discharge the duties and functions of an interim resolution professional, resolution professional or liquidator under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, and "Adjudicating Authority" carries its Code meaning through sub-rule (2). The rule reaches only the two Table entries it names in section 265; it does not displace verification for any other class of assessee, and it does not enlarge what the professional may do beyond verifying the return.
A company under a corporate insolvency resolution process has to file its return for the tax year. Its directors are not in control, and the return is verified by the resolution professional appointed by the Adjudicating Authority, who is the "any other person" prescribed by rule 168 for section 265 [Table: Sl. Nos. 3 and 9]. Verification by a former director in that period would not answer the section.
A reader meets this rule at the verification page of a return filed for a company in insolvency, and in any question about whether such a return was validly verified.
"any other person", shall be the person appointed by the Adjudicating Authority for discharging the duties and functions of an interim resolution professional, a resolution professional, or a liquidator, as the case may be, under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (31 of 2016)