The Gujarat High Court has refused to accept the request for physical filing but assures non-imposition of penalty in case of genuine hardship due to technical glitches on Income Tax Portal.
The Southern Gujarat Income Tax Bar Association has 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 Mr. Vyas and Mr. Bhatt 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 and i.e. the E-mail ID, which has been created to assist the filing of Tax Audit Report. 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 Mr. Singh as well as to Mr. Krishnamurthy is that one such E-mail ID may also be created for the Income Tax Returns. Our suggestion has been graciously accepted by Mr. Singh and Mr. Krishnamurthy. They have assured that the needful shall be done in this regard also,” the court said.
“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,” the court added.
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