THE Delhi High Court dismissed a writ petition seeking a direction to the Government to extend the due date, which is 30th September 2015 for filing income tax returns by assessees whose accounts are required to be audited. The High Court observed, "Such decisions of the Government, is a matter of policy and which the Government is best entitled to take and with which the Courts are not to interfere with except when either find the same to be infringing a vested right or causing undue prejudice to the persons effected thereby."
What is the loss to the Government if the due date is extended ? The petitioner argued that the Government will not suffer any prejudice by granting such extension of time beyond 30th September, 2015 for filing ITR inasmuch as interest, if any payable on the tax due would then be paid till the extended date for filing of the ITR. But the Court observed, However the test to be applied in such matters is not of seeing whether the respondents would suffer any prejudice or not, without first being satisfied of the infringement of rights of the petitioner and/or prejudice being caused to the petitioner. If no right is infringed and no prejudice is found to be caused to the petitioner, merely because no prejudice would be caused to the respondents by extending the time for filing the ITR would not be a ground for interfering with the policy decision of the Government and granting such extension.
This of course is not the end of the story. There are similar writ petitions pending in the High Courts of Bombay, Orissa, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Punjab & Haryana, Gujarat, as we have information. There maybe some more High Courts
No comments:
Post a Comment