Section 239

Section 239 — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section 239, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• Indglonal Investment & Finance Ltd v ITO High CourtCuts both waysValidity unconfirmed
  My client's assessment has become final and I now want the tax back because the levy was wrong. Can I run that argument as a refund claim, or in a writ petition based on Article 265?
  No. In a claim under Chapter XIX section 242 forbids the assessee from questioning the correctness of an assessment or other matter that has become final and conclusive, or asking for a review of it; the authorities cannot go behind the assessment order while examining a refund. Article 265 is not violated where tax has been collected under a valid enactment and the 'wrong' order has become final — the remedy is to attack the order itself, in appeal, revision or a writ, and refund follows only as a consequence of that.
• Saurashtra Cement and Chemical Industries Ltd v ITO High CourtHelps department
  The Tribunal has annulled my client's assessment as time-barred. Does he get back the whole of the advance tax, TDS and self-assessment tax he had paid?
  No. What Chapter XIX refunds is only the amount paid wrongly or in excess of what is properly chargeable under the Act; it does not authorise refund of tax that was properly collected. The failure of the regular assessment — whether by annulment or by its becoming time-barred — does not turn tax payable on the assessee's own returned income into tax wrongly collected.
• Smt. Shantibai v CIT High CourtHelps taxpayerSuperseded by amendment
  The Assessing Officer has determined the income at nil after the Tribunal cancelled the assessment, but has noted that the tax already deposited will not be refunded. Is that refusal appealable, or must I file a writ?
  It is appealable. An order of the officer refusing to refund an amount the assessee claims to be in excess of the tax properly chargeable is, in substance, an order under section 237, and an appeal lies against it — under section 246(n) as it then stood, and under section 246A(1)(i) today. That the same obligation could also be enforced by a mandamus or a civil suit does not take away the statutory right of appeal.

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.