Section 264 revision: the fresh claim bar, and what survives

Key points

• A claim that would have needed a revised return cannot be made in a revision under section 264 once the section 139(5) window has closed. That window now ends on 31 December of the assessment year.
• The Supreme Court’s order contains two tests that pull against each other. The formulation it adopts from Om Siddhakala is claim-centred. Paragraph 13, in its own words, is facts-centred. On the facts of both decided cases the facts were available and relief was still refused.
• That tension is unresolved, and how far relief survives where the facts were disclosed but the claim was not made is the live battleground. This article argues the facts-centred reading but does not pretend it is settled.
• The power is discretionary. Being inside the jurisdiction does not produce relief, and a petition must plead a case for the exercise of discretion, not merely for jurisdiction.
• There is no appeal against a section 264 order. The only remedy is a writ. There is also no stay of demand, which matters when choosing between revision and appeal.
• Section 119(2)(b) is now the more important route for a claim made late, and it is the one most often overlooked.
• Much of section 264 is untouched: an error by the Assessing Officer, an intimation under section 143(1), a computational mistake, and income wrongly included by the assessee.
• A judgment declares what the law always was. This governs applications already filed, orders already made and under challenge, and closed assessment years.

The distinction this article is about

There are two quite different things an assessee may want from a Commissioner exercising revisional power, and the Income-tax Act has never treated them alike.

The first is a correction. The assessment contains an error, and the material needed to see that it is an error is already on the file. The rate applied was wrong; a provision that plainly governed the transaction was not applied; the computation does not add up; a deduction that the return disclosed and quantified was dropped without reason. Nothing new has to be proved. Someone has only to look again.

The second is a claim. The assessee has thought of something that was not in the return, and establishing it requires facts the Assessing Officer never saw. A deduction that was never worked out, an exemption that was never invoked, a characterisation of receipts different from the one the assessee itself adopted. Here the revisional authority is not being asked to look again. It is being asked to look for the first time, at something that was never put in front of anyone.

For forty years most High Courts treated section 264 as reaching both. The reasoning was attractive and often expressed with some warmth: the section says “any order”, it contains none of the limiting words found in section 263, it exists for the benefit of the assessee, and the State should not keep money it is not entitled to merely because a taxpayer made a mistake. The Supreme Court has now held that the second category falls outside the section.

This article is about where the line now falls, how much of the assessee’s side of it survives, what the Department will say, and how much weight the order that drew the line can bear.

The occasion is Orissa Rural Housing Development Corporation Ltd. v. The Asst. Commissioner of Income Tax and Others, Civil Appeal Nos. 7249-7250 of 2015, neutral citation 2026 INSC 1116, reported at 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 1046, decided on 8 October 2026 by Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar JJ. It is marked reportable, runs to fifteen paragraphs across eight pages, and is headed “ORDER”.

One framing point before anything else, because it governs who this affects. A judicial decision declares what the law always was. It is not a change of regime with effect from 8 October 2026. It governs applications filed years ago and still undecided, orders already passed and under challenge, and assessment years long closed. A Commissioner now sitting on an application filed in 2024 will apply it. Dates are used in this article to identify decisions, not to mark a boundary between an old law and a new one.

The statutory architecture

Section 264 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 empowers the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner to revise any order, other than an order to which section 263 applies, passed by an authority subordinate to him. The power may be exercised on his own motion or on an application by the assessee. The governing constraint is in the same sub-section: he may pass such order thereon, not being an order prejudicial to the assessee, as he thinks fit.

Five features of that design do the work in everything that follows.

The power is one-way. Section 263 allows revision of an order erroneous and prejudicial to the interests of the revenue. Section 264 allows revision in the assessee’s favour and forbids an order prejudicial to the assessee. The two sections are not symmetrical and were never meant to be. One practical consequence deserves more attention than it usually gets: there is no enhancement risk in going to revision. An appeal to the Commissioner (Appeals) carries a power to enhance. A revision does not. For an assessee with a weak point elsewhere in the assessment, that is a genuine strategic advantage.

The object is an order, not a return. What the Commissioner revises is an order passed by a subordinate authority. The section does not speak of revising a return, revising income, or admitting a claim. That drafting point is the hinge on which the Supreme Court’s reasoning turns, because the Act deals with the correction of a return elsewhere, in section 139(5), on its own timetable.

The power is discretionary. The Commissioner “may” revise. This is not a formality and it is returned to below, because it is the ground on which most petitions will now actually fail.

The power is quasi-judicial. Dwarka Nath v. Income-tax Officer, Special Circle, [1965] 57 ITR 349, AIR 1966 SC 81, decided on 29 March 1965 by Subba Rao, Shah and Sikri JJ, held that the jurisdiction is judicial or quasi-judicial in character, that the parties affected must be given an opportunity to put their case, and that the order is therefore amenable to certiorari.

There is no appeal. Section 264 does not appear anywhere in section 246A(1). Section 253 gives the Appellate Tribunal jurisdiction over an order under section 263 and not under section 264. The only route is a petition under Articles 226 and 227.

The holding: paragraph 13, and the formulation it adopts

The Court held that the issue was no longer res integra, reproduced paragraphs 4 and 5 of Om Siddhakala, and distinguished the appellant’s authorities. Two distinct propositions come out of the order, and keeping them apart is the whole of the analysis.

The adopted formulation, from Om Siddhakala. The assessee, having not claimed the relief in the returns filed, could have revised the return within the time provided under the Act. When that was not done, “there is no question of revision under Section 264, which would be an attempt to revise the return under the garb of a revision.” That formulation is claim-centred. Its operative question is whether the assessee is trying to change its return.

The Court’s own formulation, at paragraph 13. “In our considered view, the power of the Revisional Authority is for entertaining for the first time a new question of law or point of law, and not anything which is beyond the facts which were available with the Assessing Authority.” That formulation is facts-centred. Its operative question is whether the foundational facts were on the record.

Paragraph 13 preserves a real power. The revisional authority may entertain, for the first time, a new question of law. The assessee is not confined to the arguments it actually advanced: a legal characterisation never argued, a provision never cited, a construction never put to the Assessing Officer, all remain open. The Commissioner is not limited to reviewing the reasoning the Assessing Officer happened to produce.

The Court’s reason for the ceiling is at paragraph 11, and it is a floodgates reason stated without embarrassment: otherwise there would be no end to raising a fresh claim based on a new fact which was not before the Assessing Officer, the assessment procedure and the assessment order would become endless, and any party could raise a fresh claim even though there are no foundational facts available before the assessing authority to consider it.

The objection: on these very facts, the facts were available

Any reading of paragraph 13 as a facts-centred test has to survive an obvious objection, and a page that did not state it would be worthless to anyone who has to argue the point.

In Om Siddhakala the assessee filed a self-assessment return, which was processed under section 143(1), producing a demand under section 156 from the assessee’s own figures. The point then taken in revision was the tolerance limit under section 43CA. That is a question of law applied to figures already in the return. On any ordinary view the foundational facts were with the Assessing Officer. Relief was still refused.

In Orissa Rural Housing the position is, if anything, stronger for the assessee. The appellant had filed a petition before the Assistant Commissioner for revising the return, and a revised statement of income, before the assessment was made. The Assessing Officer simply did not take account of it. The point concerned interest on non-performing assets under section 43D. Again the material had been placed before the officer. Relief was still refused.

So on the facts of both decided cases, the facts-centred test would have produced relief and the claim-centred test produced refusal. Where the two formulations conflict, the one that actually decided the cases is the claim-centred one.

There are two possible reconciliations and neither is comfortable.

The first is that the surviving category is narrower than paragraph 13’s language suggests: what is preserved is a challenge to the Assessing Officer’s legal treatment of material he acted on, whereas what is barred is any attempt by the assessee to alter the computation of income as returned, however well documented. On that reading both decided cases fall on the barred side because in each the assessee was seeking to change its own returned quantum, and paragraph 13 is confined to the officer’s own errors.

The second is that paragraph 13 is the Court’s considered statement of principle and the two earlier paragraphs are the application of it to facts the Court viewed as attempts to re-do a return, so that a case of genuine over-assessment on fully disclosed facts, where the assessee is not seeking to change its figures but to have the law correctly applied to them, remains inside the line.

This article takes the second view as the better one, because paragraph 13 is expressed as the Court’s own holding and is the only general proposition in the order. But the first view is available, it is what the Department will argue, and the tension is unresolved. Anyone pleading the second reading should plead it as a reading, should set out why the case is not an attempt to alter the return, and should expect to meet the first.

What survives, and what does not

Taking paragraph 13 at its word, the following remain within section 264.

An error by the Assessing Officer. The primary case for which the section exists. A wrong rate, a provision overlooked, a double addition, a failure to give credit, an addition made without material to support it. Nothing in the order touches this.

A new question of law on disclosed facts. Expressly preserved by paragraph 13.

An arithmetical or computational mistake. The foundational facts are necessarily present, because the figures are the record.

An intimation under section 143(1). Revisable, on Vijay Gupta, and the order says nothing about it.

Income wrongly included by the assessee. The Aafreen Fatima situation, where a figure was carried across in error. Establishing it needs no new fact. This is a correction, not a claim, though the Department will say the claim-centred formulation catches it too.

Relief apparent from the material already filed. This is the contested category discussed above. It is where the argument now is.

Suo motu revision under sub-section (2). Untouched, and worth remembering: a Commissioner persuaded that an assessee has been over-assessed may act on his own motion, and sub-section (4) does not constrain him.

What falls outside is a deduction, exemption or recharacterisation that requires the assessee to put forward material never before the Assessing Officer, once the revised return window has closed.

The forum matters more than it used to. The same claim fares differently depending on where it is raised, and the order makes that hierarchy sharper.

Forum	New legal point on existing facts	New facts or material	Power to enhance	Appeal from its order
Assessing Officer	Yes, within the assessment	No, except by a return filed as the Act provides (Goetze)	Not applicable	Yes, section 246A
Commissioner under section 264	Yes (paragraph 13)	No	No, expressly forbidden	None; writ only
Commissioner (Appeals)	Yes, powers co-terminus with the Assessing Officer (Jute Corporation)	Additional ground under section 250(5); additional evidence under rule 46A	Yes	Yes, to the Tribunal
Appellate Tribunal	Yes, plenary powers under section 254 (NTPC, Wipro Finance)	Limited; facts must be on record	No (Mcorp Global)	Appeal to the High Court

The practical consequence is that for a claim resting on material not before the Assessing Officer, the appellate route is better than revision wherever it is still open, and the section 264 route is now the weakest of the three on facts while remaining equal on law.

Jurisdiction is not relief: the discretion point

A petition can be squarely inside paragraph 13 and still fail, and after this order that is how most will fail.

The Commissioner “may” revise. Parekh Brothers, which is the high-water mark of the pro-assessee line, was careful to say that the jurisdiction is discretionary even while holding that it exists. The distinction the Kerala High Court drew is the one that now matters: negligence in omitting a claim is not a jurisdictional bar, but it is plainly relevant to whether the discretion should be exercised.

The Department’s cheapest and most effective answer to every petition is therefore no longer jurisdictional at all. It is: even if this is within section 264, no case has been made out for the exercise of the discretion. A petition that pleads only jurisdiction invites that answer and has nothing to say to it.

What a petition should plead affirmatively, and what a writ court will look for if the refusal is challenged:

• that the mistake was bona fide, with an explanation of how it came about
• that the assessee acted promptly once it was discovered, with dates
• that no other remedy was or is available, which after this order usually means explaining why section 139(5), section 154 and an appeal are each unavailable
• the quantum involved, because a Commissioner asked to exercise a discretion is entitled to know whether it is worth the exercise
• that there is no prejudice to the revenue beyond the loss of a windfall
• the spirit of Circular No. 14 of 1955, which cannot create a jurisdiction but is a legitimate reason for exercising one that exists

A writ court will not substitute its own discretion for the Commissioner’s, as the cases below confirm. It will intervene where the discretion was not exercised at all, or was exercised on a wrong legal basis. Framing the petition so that a refusal must either engage with these points or be unreasoned is the practical object.

The Department’s case

An article that set out only the assessee’s side would be of no use to the person who has to argue against the Department. These are the five arguments to expect, in their strongest form.

One, the operative holding is claim-centred. The proposition the Court adopted and applied is that an assessee who did not claim in the return and did not revise it cannot use section 264, because that is revision under the garb of a revision. On that formulation the state of the record is irrelevant. This is the argument set out above, and it is the Department’s best.

Two, derivative jurisdiction. Goetze and Shriram Investments hold that the Assessing Officer has no jurisdiction to entertain a claim made otherwise than as the Act provides. The Commissioner in revision is examining the correctness of that officer’s order. He cannot direct the officer to do what the officer had no power to do, and he cannot have a wider power over the claim than the officer whose order he is reviewing. This is a clean argument and it is not answered anywhere in the pro-assessee line.

Three, implied exclusion. Sections 139(5) and 139(8A) are a complete and deliberate statutory scheme for correcting a return, each with its own time limit and its own conditions. A general revisional power cannot be read as a parallel and effectively unlimited scheme for doing the same thing. Parliament having provided a specific mechanism with a deadline, the deadline means something. This is the Orissa High Court’s reasoning and it is orthodox.

Four, Explanation 1. The Explanation deems an order declining to interfere not to be prejudicial to the assessee. Parliament therefore contemplated refusal as a legitimate outcome producing no appealable grievance. That tells against reading the section as conferring an entitlement to relief.

Five, Gurjargravures. Addl. CIT v. Gurjargravures P. Ltd., [1978] 111 ITR 1, is Supreme Court authority that an appellate authority cannot entertain a claim never made before the Income-tax Officer where there was no material on the record to support it. Parekh Brothers distinguished it on the ground that the powers of the Appellate Assistant Commissioner under section 251(1)(a) differ in scope from those under section 264. That distinction looked comfortable in 1983. After paragraph 13, the “no material on the record” limb of Gurjargravures reads less like a case to be distinguished and more like an early statement of the same principle.

The answers available to an assessee are these. To the first, that paragraph 13 is the Court’s own general holding and the earlier paragraphs are its application to two cases the Court saw as attempts to re-do a return. To the second, that the Commissioner’s power is not derived from the officer’s but conferred independently by section 264, and that it is expressly a power to pass “such order thereon as he thinks fit”. To the third, that section 264 is itself part of the same statutory scheme and Parliament chose not to put into it the words of limitation it put into section 263, which is the Parekh Brothers argument and remains unanswered by the Supreme Court. To the fourth, that Explanation 1 addresses appealability and not entitlement. To the fifth, that Gurjargravures turned on the absence of material, so it supports rather than undermines a petition where the material is present.

Where the order can be pressed

Having set out the Department’s case, it is only balanced to set out where the order is thin.

It is a short-form order. Fifteen paragraphs across eight pages, disposing of the appeals by adopting a decision nine weeks old. That does not reduce its binding force, for the reasons given in the next section, but compressed reasoning is easier to distinguish on facts than a fully argued judgment.

The authority it rests on is very recent. Om Siddhakala was decided on 5 August 2026 on an appeal against a remand order and expressly left the underlying merits, including the retrospectivity of the section 43CA tolerance limit, undecided. A long line of High Court authority has been displaced by two orders delivered nine weeks apart.

The contrary authority was not analysed. Parekh Brothers, S.R. Koshti, Vijay Gupta, Sharp Tools, Pramod R. Agrawal and Bahar Infocons are not mentioned. The order’s only authorities are Om Siddhakala, Goetze, Wipro Finance, Dwarka Nath, Sirpur Paper Mills and Shriram Investments. The textual argument that the words of limitation in section 263 are absent from section 264 was not put and was not answered. An argument not considered is not an argument rejected, though a practitioner should be realistic about how far that goes before a Bench below.

The floodgates reasoning proves less than it is used for. Paragraph 11 is directed at a claim where “there are no foundational facts available before the Assessing Authority”. That is a reason for the ceiling. It is not a reason for refusing relief where the foundational facts are available, which is how some Commissioners will read the order.

Article 265 is unanswered. No tax shall be levied or collected except by authority of law. The High Court line used it to hold that the State may not retain tax it was never entitled to. The order does not engage with it. In a case of genuine over-assessment on disclosed facts it is the strongest remaining argument and belongs in the petition alongside the paragraph 13 point.

There are two infelicities in the order itself. Paragraph 10 says the law settled in Om Siddhakala “has earlier been considered by this Court in Goetze (India) Ltd.”, although Goetze is of 2006 and Om Siddhakala of 2026; it can only sensibly mean that the same question was earlier considered. More substantively, the same paragraph attributes to Goetze the proposition that the power of the Tribunal under section 254 is to entertain for the first time a point of law provided the facts were before it. That is the ratio of National Thermal Power, not of Goetze. Neither affects the result, but a pleading should paraphrase rather than reproduce paragraph 10.

Article 141, short-form orders, and the Gujarat problem

Two questions are usually run together here and they have different answers.

Does a short-form order bind? Yes. Article 141 makes the law declared by the Supreme Court binding on all courts within India. Nothing turns on whether the document is headed “ORDER” or “JUDGMENT”: what matters is whether the Court declared the law, and paragraph 13 is expressed as a considered declaration. An order that disposes of an appeal by adopting the reasoning of an earlier decision declares the law as much as one that reasons at length. The arguments that a decision is per incuriam or sub silentio are, in any event, not available to a High Court or a Commissioner as a route to disregarding a Supreme Court holding; they are doctrines about coordinate and subordinate benches reasoning within their own level. What a practitioner can realistically do with a short order is distinguish it on facts, not decline to follow it.

What becomes of Sheth Shree Karshandas? The Gujarat High Court allowed an omitted exemption under section 11(1A) through section 264 on 25 August 2026, twenty days after Om Siddhakala. The full judgment cites Goetze, S.R. Koshti, Ramdev Exports, Bahar Infocons, Hapag Lloyd India, Geekay Security Services, Chandrakant J. Patel, C. Parikh & Co., the Bombay decision in Swaminarayan Mandir Trust and CBDT Instruction No. 883 dated 24 September 1975. It does not cite Om Siddhakala.

It is important to be precise about what that does and does not mean. It is not right to say the Court decided without the governing reasoning before it: it had Goetze, which is the authority the Orissa High Court applied and which the Supreme Court reiterates. What it did not have was Om Siddhakala, decided three weeks earlier and not then widely reported.

The doctrinal consequence is nonetheless clear, and a Gujarat practitioner should not be left to guess at it. A decision of a High Court inconsistent with a later declaration of the law by the Supreme Court ceases to be good law, whether or not the Supreme Court decision was cited to the High Court. A judgment declares what the law always was, so the fact that Sheth Shree Karshandas predates Orissa Rural Housing by six weeks does not preserve it. A Commissioner is bound to follow the Supreme Court, and will.

What survives is its factual value, and that is not nothing. It is a clean, recent, jurisdictional-High-Court illustration of the exact fact pattern on which the surviving argument must be built: a capital gain fully disclosed, tax paid, no suppression alleged, and an exemption simply not claimed. Used as authority it will fail. Used to show a Commissioner what a fully-disclosed-but-unclaimed case looks like, and to frame the paragraph 13 argument, it still earns its place. It should be cited that way and no other.

One caution on the facts. The judgment records that the capital gain was disclosed in full, that tax was paid, that only the fifteen per cent deduction under section 11(1) was claimed, and that nothing was suppressed. It does not state in terms that the fixed deposit reinvestment was disclosed to the Assessing Officer. Since the whole value of the case lies in what was on the record, that gap matters and the judgment should be read before the point is pressed. The judgment also carries internal inconsistencies in its own figures, giving the refund as Rs. 1,00,27,295 in places and Rs. 1,00,27,298 in another, and the capital gain as Rs. 3,98,97,350 and Rs. 3,98,87,350 in different paragraphs.

Filing a section 264 application: form, forum and fee

The operational layer is where a surprising number of petitions die, and it is poorly documented anywhere.

There is no prescribed form. Unlike an appeal, which goes in Form 35, a section 264 application has no statutory form. It is a petition, and what it contains is a matter of drafting. There is also no e-filing utility, so it remains one of the few manual filings in an otherwise faceless system, lodged with the office of the jurisdictional Principal Commissioner or Commissioner and acknowledged by that office.

What it should contain. At a minimum: the order sought to be revised, identified by section and date; the date of its communication, which starts the clock; a statement of the grounds; and, after this order, an express paragraph identifying each foundational fact relied on and the page of the record where the Assessing Officer already had it. That paragraph is answering the Department’s case before it is made, and a petition drafted before 8 October 2026 will not contain it.

Jurisdiction, and the CPC problem. The application goes to the Commissioner to whom the authority passing the order is subordinate. Where the order is an intimation generated by the Centralised Processing Centre, which is now the commonest fact pattern and is the Om Siddhakala paradigm, identifying the correct Commissioner is genuinely contestable: the processing is centralised while jurisdiction over the assessee is not. No decision resolving this was traced for this article. The practical course is to file with the jurisdictional Principal Commissioner of the assessee and to say in the petition why that officer has jurisdiction, rather than leaving it to be raised against you.

The fee. Five hundred rupees under sub-section (5). It should accompany the application. If it is missed, the position is better than it looks: the Delhi High Court held in Vijay Gupta that non-payment of the fee before filing is a curable irregularity, not a ground for rejection. A Commissioner who rejects on that ground is acting against authority, and the point should be put to him in those terms.

Waiver of the right of appeal. Where the appeal period has not expired, sub-section (4)(a) bars the revision unless the assessee has waived the right of appeal. The waiver should be written, unconditional and filed with the petition. A form of words that does the work: that the applicant, being entitled to prefer an appeal under section 246A against the said order, hereby unconditionally and irrevocably waives that right of appeal for the purpose of this application under section 264, and undertakes not to institute any appeal against the said order. Conditional waivers, or waivers offered in the alternative, defeat the object and invite rejection.

Annexures a Commissioner will expect. The return and computation; the intimation or assessment order; the notice of demand; proof of tax paid; and the specific record references proving each foundational fact. Where the application is late, the material supporting sufficient cause should be annexed rather than asserted.

The hearing, the evidence problem, and the order

Three things determine the outcome of a live petition: what you may put in, what the Commissioner may call for, and what he may order. The statute says remarkably little about any of them.

A hearing must be given. This follows from Dwarka Nath, which held it implicit in revisional jurisdiction that the revising authority gives the parties affected an opportunity to put forward their case. A refusal without a hearing is a breach of natural justice and is the most reliable ground for a writ.

The remand report. In practice a Commissioner will call for a report from the Assessing Officer. Nothing in section 264 provides for it and nothing provides for the assessee to see it. The right to see and answer an adverse report follows from the quasi-judicial character of the proceeding rather than from the section, and it should be asked for expressly in the petition so that any failure is on the record.

The evidence problem, which paragraph 13 has made central. Section 264 contains no analogue of rule 46A. There is no mechanism for admitting additional evidence and no stated standard for doing so. That mattered little when the width of the power was assumed. It matters enormously now, because the question has become whether material annexed to the petition can ever be a fact “available with the Assessing Authority”.

The better view is that it cannot, if it is genuinely new. The test in paragraph 13 is historical: it asks what the officer had, not what the Commissioner has been given. Material annexed to the petition which merely evidences or locates something already on the assessment record is a different thing, and should be presented as such, with a cross-reference to where it appears in the record rather than as fresh material. A petition that annexes a bundle of documents the Assessing Officer never saw, and asks the Commissioner to decide on them, is now making the Department’s argument for it.

What the Commissioner may order. He may pass “such order thereon, not being an order prejudicial to the assessee, as he thinks fit”. Whether that includes setting aside and remitting to the Assessing Officer with a direction to verify and allow is an important practical question, because remission is the natural compromise outcome and is what many petitions should actually be asking for. The textual difficulty is that section 263(1) expressly confers a power to set aside and direct a fresh assessment, and section 264 does not. The counter is that “such order thereon as he thinks fit” is wide enough, and that a direction to verify is not an order prejudicial to the assessee. No decision resolving the point was traced for this article, and a petition that wants remission should ask for it in the alternative and say why it is within the power.

Reasons. An order refusing relief must be a speaking order. The High Courts have set aside non-speaking refusals consistently, and after this order the requirement bites harder, because a refusal must now engage with whether the foundational facts were available rather than simply assert that no revised return was filed.

Time, the bars, and the election between appeal and revision

The time limits are scattered across several provisions and are set out together here because that is how a practitioner needs them.

Step	Period	Source
Revised return	Up to 31 December of the assessment year, or completion of the assessment if earlier	Section 139(5), as substituted by the Finance Act 2021
Updated return	Available, but cannot reduce income, increase a refund or increase a loss	Section 139(8A)
Rectification	Four years from the end of the financial year in which the order sought to be amended was passed	Section 154(7)
Appeal to the Commissioner (Appeals)	Thirty days from service of the notice of demand or communication of the order	Section 249(2)
Revision on the assessee’s application	One year from communication of the order or from knowledge of it, whichever is earlier; condonable for sufficient cause	Section 264(3)
Suo motu revision	One year from the date of the order	Section 264(2)
Commissioner’s order on the application	One year from the end of the financial year in which the application was made	Section 264(6)
Condonation of delay in making a claim	Prescribed by Board circular, with authority allocated by the amount involved	Section 119(2)(b)

The section 139(5) date deserves emphasis because it is the pivot of the entire order and it moved recently in the wrong direction for taxpayers. The Finance Act 2021 substituted a window ending three months before the end of the relevant assessment year, in place of the former one-year-from-the-end-of-the-assessment-year window. The practical deadline is now 31 December of the assessment year. Anyone working from memory of the old provision will assume there is more time than there is.

Which order starts the one-year clock. Section 264(3) runs from communication or from knowledge, whichever is earlier, and the knowledge limb is sometimes reached for by a Commissioner who wants to refuse. Two points help. S.R. Koshti held that an intimation under section 143(1) is not an order of assessment, so limitation could not be computed from it. Pramod R. Agrawal held that time ran from the order under section 154 rather than from the earlier order under section 143(3), so where an assessee has been through rectification, the section 154 order is usually the better peg.

What if the Commissioner lets his own year lapse? Section 264(6) is expressed as a requirement, but the consequence of breach is not stated, and no decision on whether it is mandatory or directory was traced for this article. A deemed allowance would be a striking consequence to read in; abatement would be a striking injustice. The practical answer does not depend on resolving it: put a written reminder on the record before the period expires, and if it passes without an order, seek a mandamus to compel a decision, pleading the date of the application. A very large number of section 264 applications are simply never decided, and this is the remedy.

The bars in sub-section (4). The sub-section has three clauses, not four. Revision does not lie: under clause (a), where an appeal lies to the Joint Commissioner (Appeals), the Commissioner (Appeals) or the Appellate Tribunal but has not been made and the time has not expired, or, in the case of an appeal to the Commissioner (Appeals) or the Tribunal, the assessee has not waived the right of appeal; under clause (b), where the order is pending on an appeal before the Deputy Commissioner (Appeals); and under clause (c), where the order has been made the subject of an appeal to the Commissioner (Appeals) or the Tribunal. The references to the Joint Commissioner (Appeals) were inserted by the Finance Act 2023 with effect from 1 April 2023, which substituted “the Joint Commissioner (Appeals) or the Commissioner (Appeals)” for “the Commissioner (Appeals)” wherever occurring in sub-section (4).

The election. The substance of the bars is that appeal and revision do not run together, and the order in which they are attempted has consequences. In Orissa Rural Housing the appellant went to revision first; when the revision failed and a first appeal was filed, the Commissioner (Appeals) dismissed it as not maintainable because the right of revision had already been availed. That sequence, rather than paragraph 13, is the most immediately useful lesson of the case.

Three situations make revision the natural remedy: where no appeal lies against the order at all; where the appeal period has expired without an appeal; and where the right of appeal is deliberately waived. The second is the common case.

Where there is a genuine choice, the considerations now run as follows. An appeal can take new facts, through section 250(5) and rule 46A, and a revision cannot. An appeal carries a power to enhance, and a revision does not. An appeal produces an order appealable to the Tribunal, and a revision produces one challengeable only by writ. And, as the next section explains, an appeal engages a recognised stay mechanism and a revision does not. For a claim resting on material not before the Assessing Officer, the appeal is now clearly the better forum wherever it remains open.

One situation is not dealt with by the clauses as drafted and recurs in practice: an appeal filed and later withdrawn, or dismissed in limine or for delay. Whether the order has then “been made the subject of an appeal” within clause (c) is arguable both ways, and no decision was traced. An assessee in that position should expect the point to be taken.

Stay, recovery and interest while a revision is pending

This is decisive to the election and is almost never discussed.

A section 264 application carries no stay of demand. Section 220(6), which permits the Assessing Officer to treat an assessee as not in default while an appeal is pending, is framed around an appeal and not a revision. Recovery proceedings, adjustment of refunds under section 245 and interest under section 220(2) all continue while the Commissioner’s own one-year period runs.

Orissa Rural Housing illustrates the exposure precisely. A stay was sought and was rejected on 5 May 2009, with a demand of Rs. 10,08,58,492 outstanding, and the revision was not decided until 11 March 2010. The appellant carried the demand throughout.

What an assessee can realistically do is apply to the Assessing Officer for a stay on the general power of the authorities to regulate recovery, supported by the pendency of the revision and the strength of the case, and, if refused, challenge that refusal. It is a weaker position than an appellant enjoys, and it should be explained to a client before a right of appeal is waived.

Which orders can be revised, and the merger problem

Section 264 speaks of “any order, other than an order to which section 263 applies, passed by an authority subordinate to him”. Three limbs of that phrase do independent work.

“Any order.” The width is genuine and not confined to assessment orders. An intimation under section 143(1) qualifies, on Vijay Gupta. An order under section 154, whether allowing or refusing rectification, qualifies, and in Pramod R. Agrawal it was the section 154 order that both founded the revision and reset limitation. Orders under section 201, orders imposing interest, and orders giving effect to appellate directions are revisable in principle.

A caution often repeated and wrong: it is sometimes said that an order refusing a refund is not appealable and so must go to revision. That is not so. Section 246A(1)(i) expressly makes an order under section 237 appealable to the Commissioner (Appeals). Since sub-section (4)(a) bars revision while an appeal lies and the time has not expired, a revision filed against a refund refusal within the appeal period must be refused. The appeal is the remedy.

What does not qualify is anything that is not an order: a letter, a notice initiating proceedings, an internal communication. The Kerala High Court made a related point in Alamana Abdul Shaji Ummerkutty v. ITO, W.P.(C) No. 12516 of 2023, 2025 LiveLaw (Ker) 400, holding that the power is confined to examining the sustainability of an order passed under the Act and does not extend to directing the assessing authority at large without reference to any order. The same decision held that limitation runs from the assessee’s receipt of the intimation.

The intimation point, and the Department’s answer to it. Vijay Gupta is usually cited without its weakest flank being acknowledged. The Explanation to section 143 which deemed an intimation to be an order “for the purposes of sections 246 and 264” was omitted with effect from 1 June 1999, a point recorded in S.R. Koshti. The Department’s argument is that Parliament deliberately removed the deeming, and that an intimation is accordingly not an order for section 264 at all. Vijay Gupta reached the opposite conclusion on the width of “any order”, on Article 265 and on Circular No. 14 of 1955, and it has been followed repeatedly. But an advocate who cites Vijay Gupta without being ready for the 1999 omission will be caught by it.

“Passed by an authority subordinate to him.” Explanation 2 places the Deputy Commissioner (Appeals) among the authorities subordinate to the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner. The Commissioner (Appeals) is not subordinate, which is why an order of the Commissioner (Appeals) is not revisable under section 264 and why the bars are framed as they are.

The merger problem. Where an assessment has been carried in appeal and decided, it merges into the appellate order to the extent of what was considered and decided, and clause (c) bars revision where the order has been made the subject of an appeal. The practical question is how far the merger goes. The orthodox position is that merger operates only to the extent of the subject matter actually considered, so an issue never raised and never decided does not merge, and a revision could still lie on it. The counter-argument is that clause (c) is framed around the order having been made the subject of an appeal, not around the issue, and reads as a complete bar once an appeal has been filed. No decision resolving that tension was traced, and the safe course is to decide between appeal and revision deliberately and early.

After the order: refund, interest and enforcement

A resource that explains how to win and not what the win is worth is incomplete.

Interest on the refund. A refund flowing from a section 264 order carries interest under section 244A. The live argument is section 244A(2), which excludes periods of delay attributable to the assessee. In a revision case the delay is, almost by definition, partly the assessee’s: the claim was not made in time. Expect the Department to invoke it, and expect the argument to be about which periods are attributable to whom, with the period after the application was filed being the assessee’s strongest. Sheth Shree Karshandas directed refund with section 244A interest without separate discussion of sub-section (2).

Enforcing a favourable order. Where the Assessing Officer does not give effect to a revisional order, Dwarka Nath supplies the remedy directly: mandamus lies to compel an officer to pass an order and issue the consequential notice in accordance with law. That holding is usually cited only for certiorari against the Commissioner, and is at least as useful on this side.

Rectifying the revisional order. Whether the Commissioner may rectify his own section 264 order under section 154 for an arithmetical or apparent error is a cheap and useful question that is seldom asked. Section 154(1) extends to an order passed by an income-tax authority under the Act, which on its face includes a revisional order. No decision was traced either way.

A second application. Whether a further section 264 application lies on the same order after a refusal, on fresh grounds, was not resolved by anything traced for this article. The limitation in sub-section (3) would in most cases have expired, which makes the question largely academic.

Penalty. A successful revision reducing the addition should carry the penalty with it, since a penalty under section 270A is computed on the under-reported income. The consequential order should be asked for expressly rather than assumed.

Section 119(2)(b): the route the order leaves open

If a claim that needed a revised return cannot go through section 264, the obvious question is what it can go through. The Act’s own answer is section 119(2)(b), and it is the provision this subject most often overlooks.

Section 119(2)(b) empowers the Board to authorise an income-tax authority to admit an application or claim for exemption, deduction, refund or any other relief after the expiry of the period specified, and to deal with it on merits in accordance with law, to avoid genuine hardship in any case or class of cases.

Four features make it the natural successor to the route that has just closed.

It is designed for lateness. Where section 264 is a power to revise an order, section 119(2)(b) is a power to admit a claim out of time. The complaint in these cases is precisely lateness, so the fit is exact. The Supreme Court’s reasoning, that the Act provides a mechanism for correcting a return and a general revisional power cannot be used to bypass it, applies with no force at all to a provision whose express purpose is to relieve against the expiry of a period.

The outcome is better. A successful section 264 petition produces, at best, a revised order. A successful condonation produces an admitted claim which the Assessing Officer then examines on merits in the ordinary way, with the ordinary rights of appeal attached to whatever he decides.

It is not barred by the section 264 bars. Sub-section (4) of section 264 bars revision in defined situations involving appeals. It says nothing about an application under section 119(2)(b), and the two are not mutually exclusive.

It is administered through delegation. The power is exercised by authorities to whom the Board has delegated it, with the authority depending on the amount of the claim, and subject to an outer time limit, both set by Board circular rather than by the section. The operative circular, the current monetary thresholds and the current outer limit were not verified against the Board’s own text for this article and should be taken from the circular in force rather than from any secondary source, including this one.

Two limits should be stated honestly. The power reaches claims of refund and of carry forward of loss and set off; it is not a general power to admit any omitted deduction in any circumstance, and the scope question is itself litigated. And it is discretionary, exercisable to avoid genuine hardship, so the application has to make out hardship and not merely entitlement. An order refusing condonation is itself amenable to writ review on the familiar grounds.

The other routes, in the order they should be considered

Section 139(5). The only route the Supreme Court has endorsed. The window now closes on 31 December of the assessment year, or on completion of the assessment if earlier. Everything else in this article is about what to do once it has gone.

Section 139(8A), the updated return. This will be the first thing many readers think of, and it is not an answer. An updated return cannot be furnished to reduce income, to increase a refund, or to increase a loss. It is a mechanism for declaring more income, not less, and it carries additional tax. The over-paid assessee gains nothing from it. That is precisely why section 264 carried the weight it did, and it is a point in favour of the assessee’s reading of paragraph 13: if revision is closed too, the Act leaves a taxpayer who has over-paid with no route at all except condonation.

Section 154. Where the mistake is apparent from the record, rectification is a separate and independent remedy. It is not touched by paragraph 13, it has its own four-year period under section 154(7), and it resets the section 264 clock on Pramod R. Agrawal. An order under section 154 is appealable, though not in every case: section 246A(1)(c) covers an order that enhances the assessment, reduces a refund, or refuses the assessee’s claim, and not every section 154 order falls within it.

An appeal under section 246A. Where an appealable order exists and the thirty days have not run, this is now the better forum for anything involving new material, for the reasons given above.

The writ. In a clear case of tax collected without authority of law, Article 265 supports a petition independently of section 264. It is not a substitute for the statutory remedies and a court will ask why they were not used, but it is not foreclosed by this order, which does not mention Article 265 at all.

The authorities untangled

Six decisions are perpetually confused with one another in this area, and the confusion has survived into the order itself.

Goetze (India) Ltd. v. CIT, (2006) 284 ITR 323, decided on 24 March 2006 by Ruma Pal and Dalveer Bhandari JJ, holds that the Assessing Officer cannot entertain a claim made otherwise than by following the provisions of the Act. The facts matter and are routinely misstated, including in much of the commentary on the present order: for assessment year 1995-96 the assessee filed its return on 30 November 1995 and then claimed the deduction by a letter dated 12 January 1998 during the assessment. No revised return was filed at all, and section 139(5) is not discussed in the judgment. The Court held the Assessing Officer right to refuse, because there is no provision to amend a return except by revising it, and recorded that the decision was limited to the power of the assessing authority and did not impinge on the Tribunal’s.

National Thermal Power Co. Ltd. v. CIT, (1998) 229 ITR 383, (1997) 7 SCC 489, decided on 4 December 1996, holds that the Tribunal may entertain a pure question of law arising from facts already found, even if not raised earlier. The date is worth getting right: the report is of 1998, the judgment of December 1996.

Wipro Finance Ltd. v. CIT, (2022) 443 ITR 250, allowed a fresh claim before the Tribunal relying on National Thermal Power, and held that the limitation in Goetze applies to the assessing authority but does not impinge on the plenary powers of the Tribunal under section 254. The Department had given no objection to the claim being set up.

Shriram Investments v. CIT, (2024) 468 ITR 372, decided on 4 October 2024, explained and confined Wipro Finance. This is the decision with the time-barred revised return: an original return of 19 November 1989, a revised return of 31 October 1990, and a further revised return on 29 October 1991 held barred by section 139(5). The Court held that the question in Wipro Finance was not the power of the Assessing Officer after the revised return window closed, that the Tribunal had not exercised its own section 254 power but had instead directed the Assessing Officer to consider the claim, and that the Assessing Officer had no jurisdiction to consider a claim made in a revised return filed out of time.

Addl. CIT v. Gurjargravures P. Ltd., [1978] 111 ITR 1, holds that an appellate authority cannot entertain a claim never made before the Income-tax Officer where there was no material on the record to support it. Parekh Brothers distinguished it as concerning the Appellate Assistant Commissioner’s powers under section 251(1)(a), whose scope it held entirely different from section 264’s. That distinction was comfortable in 1983. After paragraph 13 the “no material on the record” limb reads less like a case to be distinguished and more like an early statement of the same idea, and the Department will use it that way.

Dwarka Nath v. ITO, discussed above, is authority on the character of the power and the availability of certiorari and mandamus. It is not authority that a fresh claim may be entertained. The Court expressly declined to express any opinion on whether relief ought to have been granted on the merits. Used for what it decides it remains the foundation of every successful challenge to an unreasoned refusal; used for more, it will be met with the distinction the Supreme Court has now drawn, that the scope of revisional jurisdiction as explained there “would not enlarge an assessee’s right to raise fresh claim without filing revised return”.

Sirpur Paper Mills Ltd. v. CWT, (1970) 1 SCC 795, was the third authority the appellant relied on. The order records the reliance and the distinction but does not explain the case, and its treatment could not be closed against the judgment for this article. It is generally cited for the proposition that a statutory discretion must be exercised judicially rather than arbitrarily, which is relevant to the discretion point above rather than to the fresh-claim question.

The architecture that emerges is a hierarchy of forums with different powers over the same claim, set out in the table above. One further caution on the order itself: although the section heading of most commentary suggests otherwise, National Thermal Power is not engaged by the order at all. It appears only inside the block quotation from Wipro Finance reproduced at paragraph 12.

Circular No. 14 of 1955, and Article 265

The circular. CBDT Circular No. 14 (XL-35) dated 11 April 1955 carries administrative instructions for the guidance of Income-tax Officers. Paragraph 3 states that officers must not take advantage of an assessee’s ignorance of his rights and that it is one of their duties to assist a taxpayer in every reasonable way. Paragraph 3(a) is the operative limb: officers should draw attention to any refunds or reliefs to which the taxpayer appears to be clearly entitled but which he has not claimed. Paragraph 6 carries the qualifier that is almost always omitted: the circular does not mean that tax due should go uncharged, and its purpose is that officers should not use an assessee’s ignorance to collect more tax than is legitimately due.

The full text could not be located on the Department’s own website for this article, so the wording above is taken from the reproductions in the commentaries rather than asserted as a verbatim primary-source quotation.

The structural difficulty after this order is that an administrative circular issued under section 119 cannot confer on an authority a jurisdiction the statute withholds. That disposes of the circular as a route around paragraph 13. Its continuing value is in supporting the exercise of a discretion that exists, which is where it belongs in a petition.

A correction worth making, because the error is everywhere. S.R. Koshti is routinely cited as a Circular No. 14 of 1955 case. It is not. The judgment contains no reference to that circular or to any CBDT circular. The duty-to-assist passage is sourced in the judgment itself to an unreported Gujarat decision, Vinay Chandulal Satia v. Shri N.O. Parekh, Commissioner of Income-Tax, Special Civil Application No. 622 of 1981 decided on 20 August 1981. Anyone attributing the circular to S.R. Koshti in a pleading is making a checkable mistake.

Article 265. No tax shall be levied or collected except by authority of law. This is the strongest of the general arguments, the order does not engage with it, and in a case of genuine over-assessment on disclosed facts it should be pleaded alongside the paragraph 13 point rather than instead of it.

Section 264 against section 263

Section 263 permits revision of an order both erroneous and prejudicial to the interests of the revenue, carries express conditions, a two-year limitation from the end of the financial year in which the order was passed, an express power to set aside and direct a fresh assessment, and produces an order appealable to the Tribunal under section 253.

Section 264 permits revision in the assessee’s favour, forbids an order prejudicial to the assessee, carries a one-year limitation that is condonable, contains no express power to set aside and remit, and produces an order against which no appeal lies at all.

The Kerala High Court’s textual point in Parekh Brothers was built on the first of those contrasts: the words of limitation in section 263 are absent from section 264, and the absence should mean something. That argument has never been answered by the Supreme Court. It is now in tension with paragraph 13, but the tension is unresolved rather than resolved.

A practical consequence of the asymmetry: because Explanation 1 deems an order declining to interfere not to be prejudicial, an assessee who loses a revision cannot complain that a prejudicial order has been passed. The remedy is the writ, and the ground is the manner of the refusal rather than its outcome.

Writ review of a section 264 order

Since there is no appeal, everything turns on the writ, and the case law shows a consistent pattern.

Courts have interfered where the Commissioner refused to exercise jurisdiction at all, which Puneet Dhanda treated as a material irregularity in not exercising the jurisdiction conferred on him; where the refusal rested on a technicality, which Rites Limited held it ought not to have been dismissed on; where the order was non-speaking; where there was a breach of natural justice, which follows from Dwarka Nath; and where the Commissioner proceeded on an error of law about the scope of section 264, which is what Parekh Brothers decided.

Courts have generally not interfered with the merits of a discretionary refusal, and the normal relief is a remand for a decision on merits. Rites Limited, whose paragraph 25 directed that the revision be treated as having been allowed on merits and which expressly rejected a remand, is the outlier. Bahar Infocons, sometimes cited alongside it, in fact quashed the orders and restored the proceedings to the Principal Commissioner to decide on merits, so it belongs with the mainstream rather than with Rites.

After this order a further ground becomes available to the Department rather than to the assessee: a Commissioner who grants relief on facts that were not before the Assessing Officer is acting outside paragraph 13, and that is a jurisdictional error. Holders of favourable revisional orders should expect the point to be taken.

The line this displaces

It is tempting to present what has happened as the resolution of a conflict. On the material examined for this article the High Court authority ran substantially one way, though the claim should be stated with the care it deserves and two qualifications are made below.

Parekh Brothers v. CIT, [1984] 150 ITR 105, decided by K.S. Paripoornan J of the Kerala High Court on 17 August 1983, is the earliest of the leading decisions. The assessee had not claimed weighted deduction under section 35B of Rs. 1,43,475 for assessment year 1975-76, had not argued it at assessment, and had not raised it before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner. Rectification was refused. The Commissioner condoned the delay in the section 264 petition and then dismissed it without deciding the merits, holding that section 264 does not extend to entertaining for the first time a claim negligently omitted. The High Court quashed that order precisely because jurisdiction had not been exercised, holding in the sentence that has echoed ever since that “The words of limitation contained in Section 263 of the Act are not present in Section 264 of the Act.” It cited Circular No. 14 of 1955 for its spirit while saying expressly that it was not resting its decision on the circular, and it distinguished Gurjargravures.

The Delhi High Court took the same view in Vijay Gupta v. CIT, [2016] 386 ITR 643, decided on 23 March 2016, holding that an intimation is an order for the purposes of section 264 and that the power extends to errors committed by the assessee; and went furthest in Rites Limited. The Madras High Court decided M/s Sharp Tools v. PCIT-1, W.P. No. 18185 of 2019, on 23 October 2019, rejecting the very argument that has now prevailed, that relief under section 264 is “subject to the provisions of this Act” so that section 139(5) bars it. The Bombay High Court line ran through Pramod R. Agrawal v. PCIT, Writ Petition No. 2435 of 2017, decided on 13 October 2023, and Bahar Infocons Pvt. Ltd. v. PCIT, decided on 23 September 2024. The Kerala High Court held in Transformers and Electricals Kerala Ltd. v. DCIT, W.P.(C) No. 9870 of 2013(G), decided on 11 August 2016, that the Commissioner’s jurisdiction is available even where a revised return is not filed. The Gujarat line ran from S.R. Koshti through Chandrakant J. Patel v. V.N. Srivastava to Sheth Shree Karshandas.

Two qualifications, because the framing is otherwise overstated. First, most of those decisions did not grant the claim: they quashed a refusal and remitted the matter to the Commissioner to decide on merits. A line of remand orders is weaker evidence of a settled position on entitlement than it looks. Rites Limited is the exception. Second, the line was not quite unbroken. In Bahar Infocons the Bombay High Court found it necessary to distinguish a decision of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in M.S. Raju on the footing that the deduction there “had never been claimed in the return”, which suggests at least one other adverse voice. That decision could not be retrieved for this article and no view is expressed on it, but the claim that there was a single contrary voice should not be made without it being checked.

The sustained contrary voice was the Orissa High Court in this very matter. It decided W.P.(C) No. 4554 of 2011 on 15 December 2011, dismissing the writ petition, and dismissed a review, RVWPET No. 8 of 2012, on 17 October 2012, V. Gopala Gowda CJ and B.N. Mahapatra J. The claim concerned interest on non-performing assets under section 43D, not in the original return; instead of a revised return the company filed a revised statement of income on 8 December 2008 after assessment proceedings had begun. The Court held that a fresh claim cannot be made except by a revised return, that otherwise section 139(5) would be rendered redundant, that the Act contains no provision enabling an assessee to revise his income by a statement, and it applied Goetze. The formulation most often quoted, that the Commissioner cannot do a thing indirectly which he cannot do directly under the statute, comes from the review order of 2012 rather than from the 2011 judgment, whose nearest equivalent is that where a statute requires a thing to be done in a certain way it must be done in that way or not at all.

The position under the Income-tax Act 2025

The Income-tax Act 2025 is in force from 1 April 2026, so for any year it governs the question is whether the reasoning carries across, and whether the provision is the same. The answers are yes and not quite.

Section 378 is the counterpart of section 264 and carries the same marginal note, Revision of other orders. Section 377 replaces section 263. The pairing is corroborated from within the 2025 Act: the table of time limits at section 286(1) refers, at the entry dealing with fresh orders following a set-aside, to orders under sections 359, 363, 377 and 378, which are the counterparts of sections 250, 254, 263 and 264.

Three differences are worth knowing before the sub-section numbering is carried across, which it cannot be.

The power is vested more widely. Section 378 confers the power on a “Competent Authority”, defined to include the Principal Chief Commissioner and the Chief Commissioner as well as the Principal Commissioner and the Commissioner. Section 264 confers it on the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner alone. That is a substantive widening and it affects who an application is addressed to.

The section runs to eleven sub-sections, not seven. The scheme is recognisably the same but redistributed: the power in (1); one year for suo motu revision in (2); one year for the assessee in (3); condonation separated out into its own sub-section (4); the bars in (5); the five hundred rupee fee in (6); one year from the end of the financial year for the order in (7); the exclusions in (8); a new sixty-day floor in (9); the lifting of the time limit for giving effect to a finding or direction in (10); and definitions together with the deeming of a refusal to interfere as not prejudicial in (11).

The exclusions point elsewhere. Where section 264(6) excludes time taken for a re-hearing under the proviso to section 129, the 2025 Act provision refers to a re-hearing under section 244(2). Anyone computing the Competent Authority’s period must take it from the 2025 Act and not by analogy.

On the substantive question, the reasoning in Orissa Rural Housing does not depend on any peculiarity of the 1961 drafting. It depends on the relationship between a revisional power directed at an order and a separate mechanism, with its own time limit, for correcting a return. The 2025 Act preserves both and preserves the relationship. The paragraph 13 boundary should be expected to apply to section 378 in the same terms.

Matters already in the pipeline

Because a judgment declares what the law always was, three groups of people have a live problem today rather than a future one.

An application filed and undecided. The Commissioner will apply the Supreme Court’s decision when he comes to it, whenever the application was filed. If the petition was drafted on the pre-existing High Court line, it will not contain the paragraph 13 material. A supplementary submission should be filed, identifying each foundational fact and where the Assessing Officer already had it, and making the case for the exercise of discretion. It is far better to put that in before the order than to challenge the order afterwards.

A writ pending against a refusal. The ground that the Commissioner wrongly held he had no jurisdiction to entertain a fresh claim is now much weaker. The grounds that survive are the procedural ones: no hearing, no reasons, a refusal to exercise jurisdiction at all, or an error about whether the facts were on the record. The petition should be recast towards those, and towards Article 265 if the over-assessment is genuine and the facts were disclosed.

A favourable revisional order the Department may attack. An assessee holding relief granted under section 264 on facts the Assessing Officer did not have is exposed, because the Department can now say the Commissioner acted outside his jurisdiction. There is no appeal available to the Department against a section 264 order either, so the realistic routes are a writ by the Department or a collateral attack when effect is given to the order. The holder’s answer is that the facts were available, and the time to assemble the evidence for that is now, while the record is fresh.

Preserving the point: a practice sequence

First, check section 139(5). It closes on 31 December of the assessment year. If it is open, use it; nothing else in this article is necessary.

Second, ask the paragraph 13 question before choosing a forum. Were the foundational facts for this relief before the Assessing Officer? Not: was the claim made. Were the facts there. If yes, revision is arguable and the petition should say so expressly, in those words, identifying where in the record each fact appears. If no, revision is the wrong remedy and the time spent on it is wasted.

Third, if the facts are not on the record, go to section 119(2)(b). It is the provision designed for the problem and it produces a better outcome.

Fourth, consider section 154 in parallel. It is independent of paragraph 13, carries four years, and resets the section 264 clock.

Fifth, preserve the appeal. Do not go to revision while an appeal is available and in time unless the decision is deliberate and recorded, and remember that waiving the appeal also gives up the enhancement protection in reverse, the ability to lead new material, and any realistic stay of demand.

Sixth, plead discretion, not only jurisdiction. Bona fides, promptness on discovery, the absence of another remedy, quantum, no prejudice beyond a windfall.

Seventh, if refused, frame the writ on the refusal. Failure to exercise jurisdiction, absence of reasons, breach of natural justice, error of law on the scope of the section. Plead Article 265 alongside.

What is not settled

It is firm that a claim requiring facts not before the Assessing Officer cannot be made in revision once the revised return window has closed. That is binding Supreme Court authority, twice stated.

It is firm that there is no appeal against a section 264 order and that the writ is the only remedy.

It is firm that the power is quasi-judicial, that a hearing must be given, and that certiorari lies.

It is not settled which of the order’s two formulations governs where they diverge. The claim-centred formulation adopted from Om Siddhakala decided both cases; the facts-centred formulation at paragraph 13 is the Court’s own general statement. This article argues the second is the ratio, and says plainly that the argument can be lost.

It is not settled, in consequence, whether relief is available where the facts were fully disclosed but the claim was simply not made. This is the practical battleground and the single most important open question.

It is not settled what becomes of the High Court line. None of those decisions was considered in the order, and whether a High Court will treat them as impliedly overruled or will distinguish on the facts-available point is unknown.

It is not settled whether section 264(6) is mandatory or directory, or what follows if the Commissioner lets his own year lapse.

It is not settled whether the Commissioner may set aside and remit with a direction to verify, given that section 263 confers that power expressly and section 264 does not.

It is not settled how far merger under clause (c) extends to issues never raised in the appeal.

It is not settled which Commissioner has jurisdiction over a revision against an intimation generated centrally.

Key authorities

Proposition	Authority	Level
The revisional power is for a new question of law, not anything beyond the facts available with the Assessing Authority	Orissa Rural Housing Development Corporation Ltd. v. ACIT, 2026 INSC 1116; 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 1046, 8 October 2026	Supreme Court
A claim not made in the return, no revised return having been filed in time, cannot be availed by invoking revisional jurisdiction	DCIT v. M/s Om Siddhakala Associates, Civil Appeal No. 10175 of 2026, 5 August 2026	Supreme Court
Revisional jurisdiction under the predecessor of section 264 is quasi-judicial; certiorari lies; a hearing must be given; mandamus lies to compel the officer to act	Dwarka Nath v. ITO, Special Circle, [1965] 57 ITR 349; AIR 1966 SC 81, 29 March 1965	Supreme Court
The Assessing Officer cannot entertain a claim made otherwise than as the Act provides; the claim there was made by letter, no revised return having been filed	Goetze (India) Ltd. v. CIT, (2006) 284 ITR 323, 24 March 2006	Supreme Court
An appellate authority cannot entertain a claim never made before the Income-tax Officer where there was no material on the record	Addl. CIT v. Gurjargravures P. Ltd., [1978] 111 ITR 1	Supreme Court
The Tribunal may entertain a pure question of law on facts already found	National Thermal Power Co. Ltd. v. CIT, (1998) 229 ITR 383, decided 4 December 1996	Supreme Court
The Goetze limitation binds the assessing authority but not the Tribunal’s plenary powers under section 254	Wipro Finance Ltd. v. CIT, (2022) 443 ITR 250	Supreme Court
Wipro Finance confined; no jurisdiction in the Assessing Officer over a claim in a revised return filed after the section 139(5) period	Shriram Investments v. CIT, (2024) 468 ITR 372, 4 October 2024	Supreme Court
The first appellate authority’s powers are co-terminus with the Assessing Officer’s	Jute Corporation of India Ltd. v. CIT, (1991) 187 ITR 688	Supreme Court
The words of limitation in section 263 are absent from section 264; a claim omitted from the return may be raised in revision; the jurisdiction is discretionary	Parekh Brothers v. CIT, [1984] 150 ITR 105, 17 August 1983	Kerala High Court
The Commissioner’s jurisdiction is available even where a revised return was not filed	Transformers and Electricals Kerala Ltd. v. DCIT, W.P.(C) No. 9870 of 2013(G), 11 August 2016	Kerala High Court
The power is confined to examining the sustainability of an order and does not extend to directing the assessing authority at large	Alamana Abdul Shaji Ummerkutty v. ITO, W.P.(C) No. 12516 of 2023; 2025 LiveLaw (Ker) 400	Kerala High Court
An over-assessed assessee is entitled to assistance; an intimation under section 143(1) is not an order of assessment for limitation	S.R. Koshti v. CIT, [2005] 276 ITR 165, 28 December 2004	Gujarat High Court
The revisional power is not restricted where the assessee detects a mistake after assessment	Chandrakant J. Patel v. V.N. Srivastava, [2011] 339 ITR 310; [2012] 20 taxmann.com 513	Gujarat High Court
An omitted section 11(1A) exemption allowed through section 264; decided after Om Siddhakala without reference to it	Sheth Shree Karshandas Halu Dharamshala Jamnagar v. CIT (Exemption), R/SCA 15686 of 2025; 2026 LLBiz HC (GUJ) 120, 25 August 2026	Gujarat High Court
An intimation under section 143(1) is an order revisable under section 264; the power extends to errors by the assessee; non-payment of the fee is curable	Vijay Gupta v. CIT, [2016] 386 ITR 643; W.P.(C) No. 1572 of 2013, 23 March 2016	Delhi High Court
Refusing to entertain a section 264 application is a material irregularity in not exercising the jurisdiction conferred	Puneet Dhanda v. PCIT, W.P.(C) 5906 of 2022, 25 September 2023	Delhi High Court
A revision ought not to be dismissed on a mere technicality; revision treated as allowed on merits rather than remitted	Rites Limited v. CIT, W.P.(C) 5331 of 2014, 3 July 2017	Delhi High Court
There is no embargo on the Commissioner granting relief under section 264 where a revised return was not filed	M/s Sharp Tools v. PCIT-1, W.P. No. 18185 of 2019, 23 October 2019; (2020) 421 ITR 90	Madras High Court
Section 264(4)(a) requires no waiver once the appeal period has expired, there being no subsisting right of appeal	Aafreen Fatima Fazal Abbas Sayed v. ACIT, W.P.(L) No. 6096 of 2021, 8 April 2021	Bombay High Court
Section 264 covers the case where the assessee through an error did not put forward a legitimate claim	Pramod R. Agrawal v. PCIT, W.P. No. 2435 of 2017, 13 October 2023; (2024) 464 ITR 367	Bombay High Court
Rejecting a revision for want of a revised return is an error of law; Goetze was not decided in the context of revisionary powers; proceedings restored to the Commissioner	Bahar Infocons Pvt. Ltd. v. PCIT, W.P. Nos. 2658, 2664 and 3444 of 2024, 23 September 2024	Bombay High Court
A fresh claim cannot be made except by a revised return; section 139(5) would otherwise be redundant	Orissa Rural Housing Development Corporation Ltd. v. ACIT, W.P.(C) No. 4554 of 2011, 15 December 2011; review RVWPET No. 8 of 2012 dismissed 17 October 2012	Orissa High Court

Verification status

The Supreme Court’s order of 8 October 2026 was read in full, and every date and figure attributed to it in this article was checked against it. Om Siddhakala, Sheth Shree Karshandas, S.R. Koshti, Dwarka Nath, Goetze, Wipro Finance, Shriram Investments, Parekh Brothers, Vijay Gupta, Rites Limited, Puneet Dhanda, Sharp Tools, Pramod R. Agrawal, Bahar Infocons, Aafreen Fatima, Transformers and Electricals and both Orissa High Court decisions were read in the original.

The following could not be closed and are flagged rather than omitted. The volume and page of Vijay Gupta at [2016] 386 ITR 643 is taken from later judgments citing it rather than from the reporter. The ITR citation for Chandrakant J. Patel is uncorroborated against the reporter, the Gujarat High Court itself citing the case as [2012] 20 taxmann.com 513. The taxmann.com citations for Transformers and Electricals and Pramod R. Agrawal are uncorroborated. The treatment of Sirpur Paper Mills in the order could not be closed against that judgment. The Andhra Pradesh decision in M.S. Raju, referred to in Bahar Infocons, could not be retrieved, which is why no claim is made in this article that the Orissa High Court was the only contrary voice. The operative Board circular under section 119(2)(b), its monetary thresholds and its outer time limit were not verified and must be taken from the circular in force. The full text of Circular No. 14 (XL-35) of 1955 could not be located on the Department’s own website and is taken from commentary reproductions. No decision was traced on whether section 264(6) is mandatory, on the Commissioner’s power to remit, on the extent of merger under clause (c), on jurisdiction over centrally generated intimations, on rectification of a revisional order, or on a second application after refusal.

Primary sources

• Income Tax Department, consolidated text of section 264. Several editions are served at different addresses and the Year field must be read before any of them is quoted: Year 2021, Year 2019, Year 2000 and Year 1996. None of them carries the Finance Act 2023 amendment to sub-section (4), which must be taken from clause 103 of that Act
• Income Tax Department, consolidated text of section 378 of the Income-tax Act 2025, the counterpart of section 264
• Income Tax Department, appeals and revision, and the list of appealable orders in section 246A(1), in which section 264 does not appear
• Both Acts are browsable section by section from the Department’s Income-tax Act finder, which also carries a parallel-reading view pairing each 2025 Act section with its 1961 Act counterpart

The order discussed in this article is hosted here: Orissa Rural Housing Development Corporation Ltd. v. ACIT, Supreme Court of India, Civil Appeal Nos. 7249-7250 of 2015, 2026 INSC 1116, decided 8 October 2026.

Related reading on this site: section 264 and revision in favour of the assessee, section 263 and revision prejudicial to the revenue, and section 153 and limitation.

This note is general commentary on the law as at 14 October 2026 and is not advice on any matter. The position in a particular case depends on its own facts.