Gujarat High Court Seeks Affidavit From Centre Over Failure To Make ITR Utilities Available By April 1

The Gujarat High Court recently directed the Union government to file an affidavit in a writ petition filed by the Chartered Accountants Association, Surat, and others, alleging continued non-compliance with its 2015 directions on the timely availability of income tax return e-filing utilities.

A Division Bench of Justice A.S. Supehia and Justice Pranav Trivedi noted that despite its earlier ruling in All Gujarat Federation of Tax Consultants v. CBDT, the respondent Department had not followed directions requiring that ITR forms and utilities be made available at the start of the assessment year (April 1)

The court observed that “very serious issues relating to the functioning of the respondent-Department” had been raised, pointing to difficulties arising from non-compliance with earlier orders as well as issues with the technical functioning of the portal.

Directing the respondents to file an affidavit setting out the steps proposed to address these concerns before the next hearing, the Bench warned that it would “take a serious view in the matter” if its directions were not complied with.

The matter is scheduled to be heard on April 27, 2026.

The case traces back to the court's judgment dated September 29, 2015, which dealt with delays in the release of ITR utilities that reduced the effective time available to assessees to file their returns.

In that judgment, the court had directed that “the respondents shall henceforth endeavor to ensure that the forms and utilities for e-filing of income tax returns are ordinarily made available on the 1st day of April of the assessment year" and had also recognised the CBDT's power under Section 119 of the Income Tax Act to relax provisions to avoid hardship to taxpayers.