Section 270AA(3A) — the law in short
What the courts have decided on section 270AA(3A), in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.
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Schneider Electric South East Asia (HQ) Pte Ltd v ACIT
High CourtHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
Immunity under s.270AA was refused because the officer called it 'misreporting'. Can they do that with one word?
No. Denying immunity on a bare label of misreporting, without identifying which limb of s.270A or which sub-clause of s.270A(9) is attracted, was held manifestly arbitrary. The Court directed that immunity be granted.
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Mayur Bhararbhai Popat v ITO
ITATHelps departmentNo later treatment found
I applied for immunity under s.270AA after paying the tax on the s.80GGC disallowance. The Assessing Officer refused it because he had charged misreporting. Was he entitled to?
Yes, on the law as it stood for AY 2019-20 and down to 28 February 2026. Section 270AA(3) then granted immunity only where penalty proceedings under s.270A had NOT been initiated in the circumstances in s.270A(9), so once the Assessing Officer invoked s.270A(9) the statute itself excluded immunity and the 200 per cent penalty under s.270A(8) followed. That bar no longer exists: clause 21 of the Finance Act 2026 substituted s.270AA(1) to (3) with effect from 1 March 2026, and immunity, or waiver of a penalty already levied, is now available on a s.270A(9) charge on payment of additional income-tax of one hundred per cent of the tax on the under-reported income, in lieu of the penalty. A second qualification belongs to the old law and still governs any year decided on it: where the invocation of s.270A(9) is a bare label with no clause identified and no reasoning on its ingredients, the Delhi High Court in Prem Brothers Infrastructure LLP v NFAC (W.P.(C) 7092/2022, 31 May 2022) quashed the penalty and directed immunity to be granted — so the battleground is the quality of the initiation, not the availability of s.270AA in the abstract.
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.
