The Gujarat High Court has recently issued notice to the Central Government on a plea seeking waiver of interest u/s 234A of IT Act (levied for delay in filing the return of incomes) and also permission to allow the physical filing of returns and audit reports.
The Bench of Justice J. B. Pardiwala and Justice Nisha M. Thakore was hearing the plea filed by Vikash Jain and Southern Gujarat Income Tax Bar association who sought the abovementioned relief citing technical glitches on the IT Portal.
It was also prayed by them that the last date to file ITR and Audit reports be extended, however, since the same was done by the CBDT while issuing a circular on 11th January 2022 extending the last date till Feb 15, this prayer was not pressed before the Court.
Therefore, the plea focussed mainly on the following three prayers:
- Direction to authorities for accepting the TAR and/or ITR in physical form till the New Income Tax Portal stabilizes and becomes glitch-free;
- Direction to authorities to not invoke Section 271B for late filing of the audit report and the physical filing be sufficient compliance of the Section;
- Pending admission, hearing, and final disposal of this Petition, direct respondents to allow the filing of TAR/ITR in physical form to jurisdictional authorities;
On the plea, the notices have been issued and the matter has now been posted for further hearing on January 17, 2022. The matter was represented by Senior Advocate Tushar Hemani with Dr.Avinash Poddar assisted by Nipun Singhvi and Vishal J Dave.
Union was represented by the Additional Solicitor General of India Devang Vyas.
It may be noted that yesterday, the Gujarat High Court sought the reply of the Central Government on a plea moved by seeking waiver of interest, late fees, and penalty in case of Late filing of Income Tax Returns and various reports of audit for the A.Y. 2021-22.
The Bench of Justice J. B. Pardiwala and Justice Nisha M. Thakore was hearing the plea of Chartered Accountants Association, Surat highlighting the difficulties experienced by the assessee in uploading the audit report for the purpose of filing the Income Tax Return on account of technical glitches in the portal.
Source: livelaw.in
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