LAHORE(National Times)- The Lahore High Court has held that merely uploading an appellate order to the Federal Board of Revenue\u2019s (FBR) Inland Revenue Information System (IRIS) does not constitute valid service under the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An LHC division bench comprising Justice Mirza Viqas Rauf and Justice Anwaar Hussain decided three connected reference applications led by Tahir Mehmood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The applications challenged three orders of the Appellate Tribunal Inland Revenue, which had dismissed the taxpayers\u2019 appeals as time-barred on the ground that uploading the orders to IRIS constituted sufficient service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In one case, the taxpayer argued that Covid-19 and quarantine following a foreign trip had prevented him from accessing the portal. In the other two cases, the taxpayers said they learned of the Commissioner (Appeals)\u2019 orders only after receiving recovery notices in April 2026, months after the orders had been passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Justice Anwaar Hussain, who authored the judgement, held that Section 218(1)(d) of the ordinance recognises electronic service only when carried out in the prescribed manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He observed that Rule 74 of the Income Tax Rules limits an electronic addr\u00ade\u00adss to a fax number or an email address and requi\u00adres confirmation of transmission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IRIS, by contrast, is an internal, web-based workflow system for tax administration, the judge noted, adding that placing an order in a taxpayer\u2019s account does not establish its transmission to an electronic address as required under the rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The judge distinguished between accessibility and service, observing that an order may be accessible wi\u00ad\u00adthout having been served in accordance with the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He further held that the limitation period could not begin from an event that the law did not recognise as its starting point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rejecting the department\u2019s argument that Rule 74 could not restrict the parent provision, the jud\u00adge said the requirement of service in the \u201cprescribed manner\u201d was part of the ordinance itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The judge also dismissed the contention that taxpayers were required to routinely monitor IRIS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The judge said the dep\u00adartment could not dismiss the pandemic-related exp\u00adlanation, as the corre\u00adct\u00adn\u00adess of the tribunal\u2019s conclusion involved a question of law that the high court was competent to examine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Observing that technology was an instrument of statutory administration ra\u00ad\u00adther than an independent source of statutory au\u00ad\u00adthority, the judge said mo\u00ad\u00add\u00adernisation could not disp\u00adense with legal safeguards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The court referred to rulings of the Peshawar and Islamabad high courts and the Delhi High Court, as well as Articles 4 and 10A of the Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bench set aside the impugned orders and dire\u00adcted the tribunal to decide the appeals afresh on merit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LAHORE(National Times)- The Lahore High Court has held that merely uploading an appellate order to the Federal Board of Revenue\u2019s (FBR) Inland Revenue Information System (IRIS) does not constitute valid service under the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001. An LHC division bench comprising Justice Mirza Viqas Rauf and Justice Anwaar Hussain decided three connected reference applications […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest_news","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n