The Gujarat High Court has refused to accept the request for physical filing but based upon the affidavit submitted by CBDT and deliberations during the case hearing, the Court was convinced that with the cooperation of one and all, we have been able to resolve the controversy as regards the technical glitches in the Income Tax Portal. However, the Court did not look into the Section 234A controversy in the present litigation as one writ application in this regard is already pending before this High Court and will be looked into upon hearing of same by this Court.
The applicant Southern Gujarat Income Tax Bar Association had prayed to extend the time period for filing the Tax Audit Reports and the Income Tax Returns. The other relief which has been prayed for is to permit the assesses to file their TAR/ITR in physical form till the new Income Tax portal is able to take care of all the technical glitches.
The writ applicant has also prayed for an appropriate writ, order or directions to the respondents not to invoke Section 271B for late filing of the Audit Report and the Physical filing should be construed as sufficient compliance of the Section.
The matter was taken up for hearing, the counsels for the respondents made it very clear that it is not feasible to permit the assesses to file their Income Tax Returns or Tax Audit Reports in a manual form. According to both the learned Counsel, the system itself would not permit or accept the same for the purpose of the assessment of such Returns. Having regard to such stance of the respondents, we called upon their counsels to file an affidavit, duly affirmed by the highest authority, assuring that if there are any technical glitches experienced or any other difficulties faced by the assesses while filing their Returns or Tax Audit Reports, those would be definitely taken care of at the earliest so that the assesses may not have to face the legal consequences of any delay in uploading the Returns/Tax Audit Reports.
The division bench of Justice J.B.Pardiwala and Justice Nisha M. Thakore appreciated the efforts put in by the CBDT to ensure that the assesses do not have to face any hardships or difficulties on account of the technical glitches in the portal. We take notice of one pertinent feature emerging from the affidavit i.e. the E-mail ID, which has been created to assist the filing of Tax Audit Report. The affidavit stated that the grievances received on the dedicated e-mail ID will be attended to within the timeline suggested by this Hon’ble Court.
It is also important to note that in the affidavit the Chairman, CBDT has interalia stated that there is a legal framework in place in the form of section 119(2)(b) and section 273B of the Income Tax Act which will obviate any genuine hardship faced by any taxpayer.
The bench suggested that a team of six members or if need be more are to examine and resolve the E-mails received at this E-mail ID. Our suggestion to respondent is that one such E-mail ID may also be created for the Income Tax Returns. The suggestion of the bench was graciously accepted by the respondent.
The Court stated that the respondents have assured that the needful shall be done in this regard also. In the overall view of the matter, we are convinced that with the cooperation of one and all, we have been able to resolve the controversy as regards the technical glitches in the Income Tax Portal.
However, the Court did not look into the above controversy in the present litigation as we are informed that one writ application as regards Section 234A is already pending before this High Court. This issue shall be looked into as and when the pending writ application is taken up for hearing by this Court.
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Frah Saeed is a law graduate specializing in the core field of indirect taxes and is the Co-founder of taxwallah.com. She has authored many publications on GST and is into full-time consultancy on GST to big corporates. She as a part of taxwallah.com heads a team comprising of Chartered Accountants and Advocates and plays a key role in our mission to disseminate GST knowledge to all.
