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.
Please see Delhi High Court order 2015-TIOL-2228-HC-DEL-IT
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