The Bombay High Court has held that the mandate of Rule 34 of the Income Tax (Appellate Tribunal) Rules, 1963 must be scrupulously complied with by all Income Tax Appellate Tribunals. When a matter is heard and closed for judgment, the Bench must also mention a date for pronouncement, which shall be within the period of 60 days from the date of conclusion of hearing. The judgment must be delivered within that period.
The Court clarified that only in cases where exceptional circumstances or extraordinary reasons justify further time, the judgment shall be delivered on or before the 90th day by the concerned Bench. The repeated release of matters without delivery of judgment, forcing litigants to re-argue multiple times, is impermissible and cannot be countenanced.
The Division Bench comprising the Acting ChiefJustice Ravindra V. Ghuge and Justice Gautam A. Ankhad reproduced Rule 34 of the Income Tax (Appellate Tribunal) Rules, 1963 in full, emphasising that sub-rule (5)(c) mandates that where no date of pronouncement is given by the Bench, every endeavour shall be made to pronounce the order within 60 days from the date of conclusion of hearing. Only where it is not practicable to do so on account of exceptional and extraordinary circumstances, the Bench may fix a future day for pronouncement, which shall not ordinarily be beyond a further period of 30 days — thus capping the outer limit at 90 days.
The Court noted that the Petitioner had been exasperated by two prior hearings that yielded no result, and was now facing the prospect of a third round of arguments if the current Bench also failed to deliver judgment within the statutory period. The Counsel for Respondent No.2 (the Income Tax Officer) candidly submitted before the Court that there have been instances where matters have been closed and released even on three or four occasions.
The Court expressed that its judicial conscience was shocked by this information. It observed that it cannot be countenanced that a matter closed for judgment is released without a judgment even when Rule 34 mandates a decision within 90 days. The Court questioned how far litigants would be expected to tolerate the rigours of litigation when an appeal is released on multiple occasions without any adjudication. The Court took serious note of the fact that in the present case, the appeal had been finally argued on the third occasion, and the timeline was set to expire shortly.
Briefly, the Petitioner had approached the High Court aggrieved by the repeated failure of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) to deliver judgment in his pending appeal despite the matter being closed for judgment on multiple occasions. The core grievance centred on non-compliance with Rule 34 of the Income Tax (Appellate Tribunal) Rules, 1963, which governs the timeline within which an ITAT Bench must pronounce its orders after conclusion of hearing.
The Petitioner’s appeal was first heard and closed for judgment on 1st July, 2025, by a Bench comprising Rahul Chaudhary (Judicial Member) and Vikram Singh Yadav (Accountant Member). Under Rule 34(5)(c), the judgment ought to have been delivered within 60 days, extendable by a further 30 days only in exceptional and extraordinary circumstances — thus, a maximum of 90 days. However, no judgment was delivered, and the appeal was released on 7th October, 2025, without any order being pronounced.
The appeal was then taken up before a reconstituted Bench comprising Justice (Retd.) C. V. Bhadang (President) and Vikram Singh Yadav (Accountant Member), and was reserved for judgment on 26th November, 2025. Once again, no judgment was forthcoming, and the matter was released on 27th February, 2026, after the expiry of 90 days. Thereafter, the appeal was heard for the third time before a Bench comprising Smt. Beena Pillai (Judicial Member) and Shri Arun Khopdia (Accountant Member), and was reserved for judgment on 13th May, 2026. The 90-day period from this date would expire on 13th August, 2026.
