The Delhi high court dismissed a writ petition filed by a technology company, seeking condonation of delay in filing its income-tax return for FY20. The Central Board of Direct Taxes had refused to invoke its powers accorded to it under section 119 of the I-T Act to condone this delay — the HC found no justification to interfere with this view.
This order is being widely discussed among tax circles, including I-T officials.A major fallout of not filing a timely return is that carry-forward of losses, which is typi cally available over the subsequent eight-year period is denied, as are several tax benefits. A govt official said, this order will mitigate instances of taxpayers adopting a lax attitude in complying with statutory provisions.

Sunil Agarwal, senior standing counsel for the I-T department and one of the advocates representing the matter, said, “Genuine hardship is the cornerstone for exercise of this discretion by the CBDT. The taxpayer’s contentions such as the delay arose owing to the fall-out of Covid, that the delay was a one-time aberration or even of financial crisis were proved to be factually incorrect and found non-sustainable by the high court.”
Several taxpayers, who were impacted by the fall out of the pandemic, had found it difficult to file their I-T returns and pay their dues. For FY20, the CBDT had extended the timeline for filing the I-T returns to Feb 15, 2021 (for large taxpayers who are obligated to carry out a tax audit) and to Jan 10, 2021, for others. Yet, some taxpayers continued to seek condonation for delays in filing of the I-T return beyond the extended due date.