Section 92CA(3A)

Section 92CA(3A) — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section 92CA(3A), in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• Pfizer Healthcare India P Ltd v JCIT High CourtHelps taxpayerSuperseded by amendment
  The TPO's order was one day late. Does that kill the transfer pricing addition?
  Yes. The sixty days run backwards from the s.153 limitation date, excluding that date itself, so an order passed on the sixtieth day is out of time. The requirement is mandatory, not directory, limitation goes to jurisdiction, and an order a single day late is non est along with everything built on it. That was the law when the case was decided and it remains the reasoning of the judgment, but as at 8 September 2026 the arithmetic no longer holds where the limitation date is 31 March or 31 December: s.92CA(3AA), inserted retrospectively from 1 June 2007 by the Finance Act 2026, fixes the count for those two dates and gives the officer one day more. It says nothing about a 30 September expiry, where this decision still governs.
• JCB India Ltd v DCIT High CourtHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  The Tribunal remanded my transfer pricing issue. The Assessing Officer has now passed a final assessment order straight off the TPO's fresh order, without any draft order. Is that good?
  No. Section 144C(1) requires a draft assessment order after receipt of the TPO's report, and there is nothing in its language confining that requirement to the first round; it applies equally where the TPO has acted on a remand by the Tribunal. The Delhi High Court held the resulting final assessment orders were without jurisdiction, that the defect was an incurable illegality and not a mere irregularity which s.292B could cure, and that the correct course was not to send the parties back to the draft order stage but to quash.
• ACIT v Citigroup Global Markets India Pvt Ltd ITATCuts both waysValidity unconfirmed
  The CIT(A) held my TPO order time barred because it was digitally signed a day after the date printed on it. The Revenue is now relying on a new sub-section. Where does that leave me?
  The Tribunal applied clause (c) of s.92CA(3AA) — then still the proposed clause 4 of the Finance Bill 2026, enacted three days after the order was pronounced — and held the TPO's order within time. The order was dated 31 October 2019 but digitally signed and issued on 1 November 2019, and the CIT(A) had annulled the transfer pricing adjustment on the footing that a 31 December 2019 assessment deadline required the TPO's order by 31 October. Because s.92CA(3AA)(c) deems that where limitation expires on 31 December the order may be made up to 1 November, the Tribunal allowed the Revenue's grounds on limitation and remanded the merits of the adjustment to the CIT(A), who had never decided them.
• Mondelez India Foods P. Ltd v Addl CIT ITATHelps taxpayerSuperseded by amendment
  The TPO's order is dated one day inside the sixty-day window as I count it, but the department counts it differently. Is the order time barred, and if it is, does the assessment fall with it?
  On the counting the Tribunal applied Pfizer Healthcare and the Madras High Court Division Bench in DCIT v Saint Gobain India: the s.153 expiry date is EXCLUDED, sixty days are counted back from it, and the TPO must pass his order BEFORE the sixtieth day. On that arithmetic a 31 March 2014 assessment deadline meant a TPO order by 29 January 2014, and the order of 30 January 2014 was barred by one day. THAT ARITHMETIC HAS SINCE BEEN REVERSED RETROSPECTIVELY: s.92CA(3AA), inserted by the Finance Act 2026 (Act 4 of 2026) with effect from 1 June 2007 and expressly notwithstanding any judgment of any court, deems the sixty days to be counted so that a 31 March (non-leap year) deadline permits a TPO order up to 30 January, a 31 March (leap year) deadline up to 31 January, and a 31 December deadline up to 1 November. The second holding survives the amendment: where the TPO's order IS invalid, there is no order under s.92CA(3), so there is no 'eligible assessee' within s.144C(15)(b), no reference to the DRP could be made, and the subsequent proceedings are without jurisdiction.

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.