The petitioner filed its income tax return on 24/09/2018, claiming a refund of ₹38,08,115 and inadvertently disclosed the disallowances of expenditures in the wrong colums. The Centralized Processing Center (CPC) issued an intimation on 03/09/2019, pointing out a mismatch for not reportig certain disallowances as per the Audit Report. Such Intimation was received by the Petitioner after the time limit for filing a revised return had already expired on 31/03/2019. In response to the Intimation issued by CPC, the Petitioner filed a corrected return on 06/09/2019 and later applied for condonation of delay under Section 119(2)(b). The Application u/s 119(2)(b) was also rejected and as a result, the Petitioner was compelled to approach the Hon’ble Gujarat High Court.

I had the opportunity to argue the matter before the Hon’ble Gujarat High Court wherein my primary contention was that the Petitioner had merely disclosed the disallowable items in the wrong columns and there was no change in the taxability thus there was no loss to the Revenue and there was genuine hardship as substantial amount of refund was not being granted to the Petitioner as the Application u/s 119(2)(b) had been rejected by the Revenue Authorities.

After comprehensive arguments, the Court decided in the Petitioner’s favour by quashing and setting aside the impugned order u/s 119(2)(b) and directing the Respondents to process the Return in accordance with law.