Constitution Art. 14

Constitution Art. 14 — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section Constitution Art. 14, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• All India Bank Officers' Confederation v Central Bank Supreme CourtHelps departmentNo later treatment found
  My employer gave me a concessional staff loan. Is the interest I saved taxable as a perquisite?
  Yes. Interest-free and concessional employer loans are fringe benefits and therefore perquisites, and the Supreme Court upheld both s.17(2)(viii) and the Rule 3(7)(i) valuation pegged to the State Bank of India prime lending rate as neither arbitrary nor contrary to Article 14.
• DCIT v Pepsi Foods Ltd Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  Your Tribunal stay lapsed at 365 days through no fault of yours. Is that constitutional?
  No. The third proviso to s.254(2A), which vacated a stay after 365 days even where the delay was not attributable to the assessee, violates Article 14. A stay now vacates only where the delay is attributable to you.
• Union of India v Exide Industries Ltd Supreme CourtHelps departmentNo later treatment found
  Can I deduct my provision for leave encashment in the year I make it, or only when I pay?
  Only when paid. Section 43B(f) is constitutionally valid: it does not touch your choice of accounting method or take away the deduction, it adds a condition of actual payment for that head and defers the benefit to the year of payment.
• Binoy Viswam v Union of India Supreme CourtCuts both ways
  Is the Aadhaar-PAN requirement in s.139AA valid, and can my existing PAN be cancelled under it?
  Valid, with one limited relief. Section 139AA was upheld against Article 14, the classification being rationally connected to eliminating duplicate and fake PANs, and against Article 19(1)(g) as a reasonable restriction saved by Article 19(6); the Article 21 privacy challenge was expressly left to the Constitution Bench. The only relief was that the consequence in s.139AA(2) of treating a PAN as invalid could not operate retrospectively so as to unsettle completed transactions of existing PAN holders who had not enrolled.
• T.D. Venkata Rao v Union of India Supreme CourtHelps department
  I am a registered income-tax practitioner under s.288(2). Can I sign a tax audit report?
  No. Being an authorised representative under s.288(2) carries no right to conduct the compulsory audit under s.44AB. The Court gave one reason: chartered accountants, by reason of their training, have a special aptitude in the matter of audits and form a class by themselves, so it is reasonable to require the audit to be done by them; the Article 19 challenge failed "for the same reasons", and the practitioners remain entitled to act as authorised representatives.
• Escorts Ltd v Union of India Supreme CourtHelps department
  I wrote off the whole cost of a laboratory building and its equipment under the scientific research provision. Can I also take depreciation on the same assets in later years, and can the department deny it for years before 1980 using an amendment made in 1980?
  No to the first, and yes to the second, and the reason for the second is the answer to the first. Section 35(2)(iv) as substituted by the Finance (No.2) Act 1980, with retrospective effect from 1 April 1962, provides that where a deduction is allowed for any previous year under section 35 in respect of expenditure represented wholly or partly by an asset, no deduction shall be allowed under clauses (i), (ii) and (iii) of section 32(1) for the same or any other previous year in respect of that asset. The petitioners said that was a new burden imposed on closed years and attacked it under Articles 14, 19(1)(g) and 300-A. The Supreme Court dismissed the petitions. It held that even before the 1980 amendment the Act did not permit depreciation on the cost of a capital asset acquired for scientific research to the extent that cost had been written off under the scientific research provision, so the amendment effected no change at all except to set out more clearly and categorically what the provision said even earlier. Being clarificatory, it took away no vested right. The reason the pre-amendment law was already to that effect is the sentence the case is now known for: there is an axiom, unwritten but fundamental, that no legislature could have intended a double deduction for the same business outgoing, and if it is intended it will be clearly expressed.
• Pooran Mal v Director of Inspection Supreme CourtHelps department
  The search on me was illegal. Can I stop the department using what it took?
  No. Indian tax law has no exclusionary rule. The Supreme Court upheld s.132 and rule 112 and held that even if a search contravened the section, the material seized was liable to be used, subject to law, before the income-tax authorities against the person from whose custody it was taken. Illegality in the search goes to relief against the search, not to the admissibility of what it produced.
• Federation of All India Vyapar Mandal v Union of India Supreme CourtHelps departmentJudgment not reachable
  I heard the 45-day MSME payment rule was challenged in the Supreme Court. Was it struck down?
  Nothing has been struck down. Section 43B(h) is in force. Tax-press reports in 2024 said a traders' federation had moved the Supreme Court against the clause and that the Court did not take up the challenge, but no order of any court in that matter has been located, and the reports do not agree with each other on what was actually done. Treat the position as: no court has struck down or read down s.43B(h), and there is no order you can cite.
• Anila Rasiklal Mehta v Union of India High CourtCuts both waysNo later treatment found
  The department got my foreign account details under an exchange-of-information agreement, so s.71(d)(iii) shut me out of the s.59 declaration window. Does Gautam Khaitan still answer me?
  The Bombay High Court said that point was not decided in Gautam Khaitan and left it open. On the notice of motion it refused a stay of the s.10(1) notices, but directed that no coercive measures be taken while the department proceeds, and kept the Article 14 and Article 20 challenge for the hearing of the writ petition itself. Nothing was decided on the merits.

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.