Delhi High Court Seeks PAN Details Of Supreme Court, High Court Judges Amid Income Tax Allowances Dispute

The Delhi High Court on Monday directed the Private Secretaries of Supreme Court and High Court judges who have filed their income tax returns under the new tax regime to furnish their PAN Card details.

The Court had also directed furnishing other details like assessment year, date of filing and Acknowledgment Number (of Return) to the Income Tax Department, to ensure that their returns are not processed pending adjudication of a plea concerning the tax treatment of judicial allowances.

The bench of Justices Dinesh Mehta and Rajneesh Kumar Gupta passed the direction while modifying its earlier interim order dated July 22, 2026, in a petition filed by the Delhi Tax Bar Association challenging a September 12, 2025 Office Memorandum issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).

The earlier order had permitted Supreme Court and High Court judges opting for the new tax regime to file or revise their returns by showing prescribed judicial allowances as “receipts not in the nature of income”, pending consideration of the challenge.

The dispute concerns judicial allowances covered under Sections 22D and 23D of the High Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Act, 1954, and the Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Act, 1958, respectively. The petitioner has contended that such allowances, including rent-free accommodation, conveyance facilities, sumptuary allowance and leave travel concession, are statutorily excluded from taxable salary and cannot be denied merely because a judge opts for the new tax regime.

In its earlier order, the Court had expressed a prima facie view that the non-obstante clauses in Sections 22D and 23D appeared to override the provisions of the Income Tax Act, including Section 115BAC. It had also observed that an amount which is not included in income cannot be treated as an exemption or deduction prohibited under the new tax regime.

The present application was moved by the Income Tax Department seeking modification of the earlier direction that the returns filed by judges “shall not be processed.”

Appearing for the Department, Senior Standing Counsel Shlok Chandra submitted that income tax returns are processed electronically through computer-generated programming at the Centralised Processing Centre (CPC), and the system cannot identify whether a particular return belongs to a sitting Supreme Court or High Court judge.

He submitted that strict compliance with the earlier direction could therefore require the processing of returns filed by all assessees to be stopped.

Finding force in the submissions, the High Court directed the Private Secretaries of judges who had filed their returns under the new regime pursuant to the July 22 interim order to furnish the abovementioned details to the Income Tax Department by August 18.

The Court directed the Department not to process the returns of judges in respect of whom such information is received.

It further clarified that any judge proposing to file a return or revised return under the new regime pursuant to the July 22 order may have his or her Private Secretary furnish the prescribed details within 12 hours of filing the return.

The Court also took note of the Department's submission that returns are automatically processed and that, by the end of August, around 98% of returns may be processed without human intervention.

As such, it ordered that if the returns of judges covered by the July 22 order and the present order have already been processed and a demand has been raised, such demand would remain in abeyance pending adjudication of the writ petition.

Where a refund is found due, the same would not be released. If a refund has already been issued, it would remain subject to the outcome of the writ petition.

The matter is now listed on September 3.

For Petitioner: Mr. Sachit Jolly, Sr. Advocate with Mrs. Mansha Anand, Mr. Sohum Dua, Mr. Abyudaya Shankar Bajpai, Ms.Saloni Ray, Mr. Ghunaim Siddiqui, Ms. Manvi and Mr. Ramanand Roy, Advocates.

For Respondents: Mr. Shlok Chandra, SSC along with Ms. Naincy Jain and Ms. Madhavi Shukla, JSCs and Mr. Udit Dad, Advocate for R-2. Mr. Naveen Gupta, PDIT, Mr. Aditya R., Mr. Sudhendra Kumar, Mr. Prabhakar, Addl. DITs, Mr. N. Sairaj and Mr. Nishant Rao, JDITs and Mr. Somsekhar, DDIT.