The Kerala High Court, while considering a writ petition against the delay in processing the income tax refund due to the technical glitches in the online portal, has directed the Centralized Processing Centre (CPC) to initiate the process and allow the refund to the assessee along with interest.
Justice Gopinath P was considering a bunch of petitions by the petitioners in these cases suffered orders of assessment and orders imposing penalty for assessment years 2010-11 and 2016-17. They filed applications under the Vivad Se Vishwas Act, 2000 and the matter has been settled. As a consequence of settlement, certain amounts have to be refunded to the petitioners. However, such refund has not been made despite the passage of merely one year and 9 months from the date of settlement.
On the other hand, the department has held that the refund could not be made only on account of some technical defect and the Director General of Income Tax has already taken up the matter with the Centralized Processing Centre, Bengaluru. The department contended that the no manual refund is possible and all refund applications are processed at the Centralized Processing Centre at Bengaluru.
Allowing relief to the assessee, the High Court held that “taking into consideration of the submissions, this writ petition will stand disposed of directing that the refund due to the petitioners shall be processed without any further delay and shall be issued at any rate within a period of 2 months from the date of receipt of a certified copy of this judgment. If the petitioners are entitled to any interest on account of the delayed payment of refund, the same shall also be granted to the petitioners.”
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