Rule 169 — Form of verification for furnishing information under section 268(1)(c). Made under s.268 of the Income-tax Act, 2025.
Rule 169 gives effect to Section 268 of the Income-tax Act, 2025. A rule cannot go beyond the section it serves: where the two seem to differ, the section governs.
Rule 169 prescribes the form of verification for information a person is required by the Assessing Officer to furnish under section 268(1)(c). The information shall be verified in the manner set out in the rule, which supplies the words of the declaration itself: that to the best of the declarant's knowledge and belief the information furnished in the statement or statements is correct and complete and the other particulars shown in it are truly stated.
The rule prescribes nothing else — no form number, no time limit, no manner of delivery. It fixes only the words by which the person furnishing the information vouches for it.
Section 268(1)(c) lets the Assessing Officer call for information but does not say how the person furnishing it commits to its accuracy. A prescribed verification turns a set of particulars into a signed statement of the person's knowledge and belief, which is what makes an inaccurate answer chargeable as such rather than a matter of loose correspondence.
The declaration commits the person on two distinct points, and both are worth reading before signing: that the information is correct and complete, and that the other particulars shown in the statement are truly stated. Completeness is part of the promise, so a selective but accurate answer does not satisfy the verification. The standard is knowledge and belief, not certainty, but it is the declarant's own knowledge and belief. Everything else about the exercise — what may be called for, from whom, and by when — comes from section 268 and the Assessing Officer's notice, not from this rule.
An Assessing Officer calls for information under section 268(1)(c) about payments made to a set of parties during a tax year. The person furnishing it prepares the statement, omits one party whose payments he considers immaterial, and signs the verification in the words rule 169 prescribes. The declaration is that the information is correct and complete; the omission puts him at odds with what he has signed, which is a different matter from an arithmetical error in an otherwise complete statement.
A reader meets it at the foot of the statement furnished in answer to a notice under section 268(1)(c), where this is the form of words that has to be signed.
I declare that to the best of my knowledge and belief, the information furnished in the statement/statements is correct and complete and other particulars shown therein are truly stated.