Section 144BA(9)

Section 144BA(9) — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section 144BA(9), in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• Statutory position — Rules 10UD, 10UE and 10UF: the Approving Panel stage — Form 3CEIA, four sets, circulation within seven days, and the notice of hearing to both sides CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
  The Commissioner has referred my case to the Approving Panel. What form does that reference take, what is the Panel obliged to do with it, and am I entitled to be heard?
  Three rules govern this stage and they are short. Rule 10UD requires the reference under s.144BA(4) to be "made in Form No. 3CEIA along with a copy of Form No. 3CEI and such other documents which the Principal Commissioner or the Commissioner deems fit" and to be "submitted in four sets, either in Hindi or English". Rule 10UE(1) requires the Chairperson of the Panel to cause the reference to be circulated among the other members "within seven days from the date of receipt of such reference". Rule 10UE(2) requires the Chairperson to "cause to be issued the notice to the Assessing Officer and the assessee affording an opportunity of being heard specifying therein the date and place of hearing" — so the taxpayer's right to be heard before the Panel is in the rules as well as in s.144BA(7). Rule 10UE(3) leaves the venue of the Panel's meetings to the Panel. Rule 10UF fixes the members' remuneration at a sitting fee of six thousand rupees per day plus travelling and daily allowances as admissible to an officer of the rank of Special Secretary to the Government of India, met from the budgetary grants of the Department of Revenue.
• Statutory position — s.144BA(15) to (21) and the Explanation: who sits on the Approving Panel, the powers it borrows from the Advance Rulings Authority, and the two things that stop its six-month clock CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
  My case is going to the Approving Panel. Who actually sits on it, what powers does it have over me, how long is its term, and can the six months it has to decide be extended?
  The Approving Panel is not a departmental committee. By s.144BA(15) the CENTRAL GOVERNMENT constitutes one or more Panels, each of three members including a Chairperson, and by s.144BA(16) "the Chairperson of the Approving Panel shall be a person who is or has been a judge of a High Court", with one member from the Indian Revenue Service not below the rank of Principal Chief Commissioner or Chief Commissioner of Income-tax and one member "an academic or scholar having special knowledge of matters, such as direct taxes, business accounts and international trade practices". By s.144BA(19) the Panel has, in addition to its own powers, "the powers which are vested in the Authority for Advance Rulings under section 245U". Its term is ordinarily one year, extendable up to three years (s.144BA(17)). The six-month period in s.144BA(13) is subject to an Explanation that excludes two things — time taken on an exchange-of-information reference under s.90 or s.90A, capped at one year, and any period during which the Panel's proceeding is stayed by a court order or injunction — with a proviso that if fewer than sixty days remain after that exclusion, the period is extended to sixty days.

Listed strongest first: Supreme Court, then High Court, then Tribunal, then CBDT. Nothing here has yet been read in full by a chartered accountant — open an entry to see where it came from.