Rule 254 — Appearance by Authorised Representative in certain cases. Made under s.515 of the Income-tax Act, 2025.
Rule 254 gives effect to Section 515 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 identifies the "any other person" who may appear as an authorised representative for the purposes of section 515(3)(a)(ix). In respect of a company or a limited liability partnership, that person is 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.
When a company or a limited liability partnership goes into insolvency or liquidation, the directors and officers who would ordinarily appear for it are displaced, and the professional appointed under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 is the person actually running its affairs. Section 515(3)(a)(ix) leaves room for such a person to be specified, and the rule fills it, so that proceedings can continue with someone who has authority to speak for the entity.
The rule is confined in two ways. It covers a company or a limited liability partnership only, so it does not supply a representative for any other class of assessee, and it covers only the person appointed by the Adjudicating Authority for those functions under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 and the rules and regulations made under it. The source of the authority is the appointment, not the professional's qualification: someone acting for the entity in insolvency without such an appointment does not come within the clause. What the representative may then do is a matter for section 515 and the provisions on appearance generally; the rule only settles who the person is.
A company under corporate insolvency resolution has an assessment proceeding pending. Its former directors no longer control it, and the resolution professional appointed by the Adjudicating Authority appears for it as an authorised representative under section 515(3)(a)(ix). If the process moves to liquidation, the liquidator so appointed steps into the same position.
You meet it in assessment, appellate or recovery proceedings involving a company or limited liability partnership in insolvency, where the appearance is made by the appointed professional rather than by the entity's own officers.
any other person, in respect of a company or a limited liability partnership, 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)
