Government securities become refundable in cases of invalid declaration. - Income Tax - 960/CBDT

INSTRUCTION NO. 960/CBDT Dated : June 16, 1976 Reference is invited to Board's letter F.No.283/16/75-IT(inv) dated 20.3.1976. Wherein a clarification was given to the effect that declarations posted on or before 31.12.1975 but received by the Commissioners on or after 1.1.1976 cannot be treated as having been made to the Commissioner before 1.1.1976, and as such, such declarations do not fall within the ambit of the aforesaid Act, and are to be treated as invalid. The amount of tax paid/amount invested in notified Government securities became refundable in such cases. 2. The Board have examined the procedure to be followed for issue of refunds in such cases, and have decided that the Commissioner may pass a formal order stating the reason for non-acceptance of the declarations under the aforesaid Act and specifying the amount of tax paid, which is refundable in consequence thereof. A copy of this order may be sent to the concerned Income-tax Officer. On receipt of the order the Income-tax Officer will issue a refund order in the form of refund voucher currently in use. As the three certificates prescribed in the refund voucher form would not be applicable in such cases they will be scored out. The concerned bank should be advised separately about the deviation in so far as scoring out the three certificates is concerned so as to avoid any scope of dishonouring of the refund voucher by the bank. 3. Adjustments of these refunds against demand payable from the same assessee would not be possible u/s 245 of the IT Act 1961. However, adjustments can be made if the declarant agrees or opts for it and in such cases appropriate entries will be made in the concerned record.