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Home › Find an Advocate › ITAT and tax appeals

ITAT and income tax appeals in Delhi — the demand is already against you, and filing an appeal does not stop it

Everywhere else on this site, something happens, then there is a hearing, and then there is a result. Tax is the other way round. A figure is fixed first — by an officer, in an order, with a notice attached saying pay this within thirty days — and the hearing comes afterwards, sometimes years afterwards. And the part nobody is told until it is too late: lodging an appeal does not pause any of it. The demand stands, interest keeps running, and recovery can begin while your appeal sits in a queue. A stay is a separate application that somebody has to make. This page is about those two clocks, and about the second thing nobody mentions — that the Tribunal is the last place your facts will ever be looked at.

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Does filing an income tax appeal stop the demand?No. This is the misunderstanding that costs taxpayers the most. An appeal and a stay are two different things. The demand raised by the notice under Section 156 remains payable, Section 220(1) allows thirty days, interest under Section 220(2) continues to run, and recovery can be initiated regardless of the appeal. A stay has to be applied for separately — Section 220(6) allows the Assessing Officer to treat you as not being in default in respect of the disputed demand while the appeal is pending, and administrative instructions commonly applied at twenty per cent of the disputed demand govern how that discretion is exercised. File both, on the same day if you can.

What this page covers

  1. Everywhere else the hearing comes first. Here it comes last
  2. Two pieces of paper, and people read only one
  3. Section 246A — thirty days to the first appeal
  4. Section 249(4) — the condition that stops an appeal at the door
  5. The stay — the separate application nobody tells you about
  6. The twenty per cent — what it is and what it is not
  7. The first week after the order arrives
  8. Interest runs the whole time, and it belongs in your decision
  9. Who can actually represent you — advocate, accountant, or both
  10. The penalty is a separate proceeding — and people forget it
  11. The commonest addition of all — money the officer says you have not explained
  12. What actually works as a ground of appeal
  13. The Tribunal is the last place your facts are ever looked at
  14. Additional evidence — a much narrower door than people think
  15. Section 253 — and the period most articles still get wrong
  16. What the Tribunal is, and why it feels different
  17. The paper book, which is most of the work
  18. If you are salaried — what actually goes wrong, and what it is not
  19. What “faceless” changed for you in practice
  20. If what you have is a reassessment notice
  21. Not everything is an appeal — the Section 143(1) case
  22. If you ignored a notice and an order has come anyway
  23. When recovery has already started
  24. Is there a way to just settle it?
  25. GST is a different ladder — do not borrow this one
  26. The same issue across several years
  27. Is it worth fighting? The arithmetic, honestly
  28. If you win — what has to happen next
  29. Where these sit in Delhi
  30. On the day of a hearing
  31. Free legal services, and where they fit here
  32. The file, and how long to keep it
  33. Where taxpayers lose this
  34. What to collect before anybody drafts
  35. Our part of a tax file
  36. What we decline on a tax matter
  37. What we charge, said up front
  38. Questions people ask

Everywhere else the hearing comes first. Here it comes last

A normal legal proceeding has an order of events that people intuitively understand. Something is alleged. There is a hearing. Somebody decides. Only then does anybody owe anything.

Tax inverts that completely. An officer passes an assessment order, a notice of demand under Section 156 goes with it, and from that moment a specific number is due from you within thirty days under Section 220(1). Your objection to it has not been heard by anybody independent, and it will not be for a long time.

So the person holding a tax demand is in a position the rest of this site does not prepare them for. They are not waiting for a case to begin. They are already the one who owes, on paper, with interest running, while the question of whether they owe it is unanswered.

The whole page in four lines

An appeal does not stay the demand — the stay is a separate application under Section 220(6). Thirty days to the first appeal, and a different period to the Tribunal that most articles still get wrong. The Tribunal is the last place your facts are looked at, so nothing can be saved for later. And interest runs the whole way, which belongs in the decision about whether to fight at all.

Left to other pages deliberately: fighting a government department generally, including RTI and the notice a suit needs, is on our Patiala House page; how the High Court handles an appeal is on our Delhi High Court page; and a bank enforcing security is on our DRT page.

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Two pieces of paper, and people read only one

What arrives is usually two documents, and they do different jobs. Read them separately.

The assessment orderThe notice of demand (Section 156)
What it doesExplains what the officer decided and on what reasoningStates the amount payable and by when
What you take from itThe grounds of appeal come from here — each addition, and what was said about itThe money clock — thirty days under Section 220(1), then interest under 220(2)
Date that mattersService of the order, which starts the appeal periodService of the notice, which also starts the appeal period
Commonly ignoredWhether the officer dealt with the reply you filed — and if not, that is itself a pointWhether the computation matches the order at all. Sometimes it does not

Take both to whoever advises you on the same day. And note the dates of service on a sheet of paper, because everything that follows is counted from them.

Section 246A — thirty days to the first appeal

The first appeal lies to the Commissioner (Appeals) or the Joint Commissioner (Appeals) under Section 246A, against the orders that section lists, and it is to be filed within thirty days from the date of service of the order or of the notice of demand.

Delay can be condoned where sufficient cause is shown. As everywhere else on this site, that is an application you have to make and support with a dated account, not a courtesy. “My accountant did not tell me” is a weaker explanation than a paper trail.

We prepare the CIT(A) appeal documentation — the form, the statement of facts, the grounds as settled by whoever is advising you, and the annexures. What goes into the grounds is theirs; the assembly is ours.

Section 249(4) — the condition that stops an appeal at the door

A short section that catches people who are already short of money.

Before an appeal is admitted, the tax due on the income returned has to have been paid. So the person who filed a return, could not pay the tax on it, and now wants to appeal an addition made on top of it can find the appeal not entertained until that part is dealt with.

It is worth checking this before filing rather than after, because discovering it later burns weeks of a thirty-day period that has already gone. If money is the constraint, say so to your adviser at the first meeting so the sequence can be planned around it.

The stay — the separate application nobody tells you about

If one section of this page prevents a disaster, this is it.

An appeal does not stay recovery. What does is Section 220(6): where an appeal is pending, the Assessing Officer may, in his discretion and subject to such conditions as he thinks fit, treat the assessee as not being in default in respect of the disputed amount.

Read the words. May. In his discretion. Subject to conditions. This is not automatic and it is not a form-filling exercise — it is an application that has to persuade.

What a stay application should actually say

  • The prima facie case — briefly, why the addition is likely to go, with the one or two strongest points rather than all of them.
  • The financial hardship, with documents. Bank statements, the state of the business, commitments already made. An assertion of hardship with nothing attached persuades nobody.
  • The balance of convenience — what happens to the business, the employees, the family if recovery proceeds now.
  • What you are offering, if anything. A realistic proposal is far stronger than a bare request for a full stay.
  • Any comparable relief granted in your own earlier years, if there is any.

File it with the appeal, or immediately after. Not when the recovery notice arrives.

The twenty per cent — what it is and what it is not

Everybody in this area has heard the figure and most people misunderstand its status.

It is not in the Income-tax Act. The Board issues administrative instructions to assessing officers about when a stay should be granted pending the first appeal, and the figure commonly applied is twenty per cent of the disputed demand. Being an administrative instruction, it is revised from time to time, and the current position should be checked rather than assumed — which is why this page treats it as a practice rather than a rule.

Two things follow that are worth knowing. It is not an absolute floor: relief on a lower deposit, or none, can be granted in appropriate cases, and the instructions themselves contemplate that. And if the officer refuses or insists on the full figure in a case where that is unreasonable, there are routes above the officer — which is a question for counsel rather than something to accept as final.

The practical mistake is treating twenty per cent as a fee you must pay to be allowed to appeal. It is not. It is the usual condition attached to a discretionary stay, and a properly supported application can and does ask for something different.

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The first week after the order arrives

Thirty days is short, and the first two of them usually go on shock. So, in order:

Seven days, seven things

  • Note three dates on one sheet: the date of the order, the date of service, and the date thirty days from service.
  • Read the order for what it decided, addition by addition. Number them. Those numbers become the grounds.
  • Check the demand computation against the order. They do not always agree, and a mismatch is a point worth taking.
  • Check Section 249(4) — is the tax on your returned income paid? If not, plan for it now, not in week four.
  • Pull the assessment file together: every notice, every reply you filed, every acknowledgement.
  • Decide who is running this — accountant, counsel, or both — and make one of them responsible for the dates.
  • Start the stay application alongside the appeal, not after it. Gather the bank statements it will need.

What not to do in that week: pay somebody who says they can have the order withdrawn, and let the file sit because the amount is so large that it feels unreal. Both happen, and both cost the thirty days.

Interest runs the whole time, and it belongs in your decision

Section 220(2) provides for interest where the amount specified in the demand notice is not paid within the period allowed. It runs while the appeal is pending. It runs while the stay is in force. It runs for the years the matter takes.

Which means the arithmetic of litigating is not simply “the demand against the cost of fighting it”. It is the demand, plus what the interest will have become by the time it is decided, against the cost of fighting and the honest chance of winning.

That calculation sometimes says fight, and where the addition is wrong and you can document it, it usually does. Sometimes it says pay and move on. The only wrong version is not doing the calculation at all, which is what most people do.

Who can actually represent you — advocate, accountant, or both

A question peculiar to tax, and people get it wrong in both directions.

The Act allows an assessee to be represented by an authorised representative, and the categories include an advocate and a chartered accountant among others. So unlike most forums on this site, you are not choosing only between an advocate and yourself.

StageWhat it actually needs
Replying during the assessmentWhoever knows your books. Usually the accountant who prepared them, because this stage is about producing records and explaining entries
First appealEither, and often the accountant — but the grounds need to be framed as legal grounds, not as an explanation of the accounts
The TribunalThis is a judicial forum, and the argument is legal. Most people are better served by counsel here, with the accountant supporting on the numbers
High Court and aboveCounsel, on a substantial question of law

The mistake in one direction is running the whole thing through an accountant to the Tribunal because that is who has always done the filings. The mistake in the other is bringing in counsel who has never seen the books. In a serious matter the honest answer is usually both, with somebody clearly responsible for the legal argument.

The penalty is a separate proceeding — and people forget it

This catches genuinely careful taxpayers, because everybody focuses on the demand.

An addition made in an assessment can be followed by penalty proceedings, which run on their own track with their own notice, their own hearing and their own order. Somebody who has carefully appealed the assessment and stopped answering anything else can find a penalty order arriving while the appeal is still pending.

What to do about a penalty notice

  • Reply to it. It is a separate proceeding and non-response is treated as such.
  • Say that the addition is under appeal and ask for the penalty to be kept in abeyance until the appeal is decided. This is a normal request and frequently granted.
  • Understand that the grounds are different: penalty turns on whether income was under-reported or mis-reported, not simply on whether the addition stands.
  • If a penalty order is nevertheless passed, it is separately appealable — and it has its own period, running from its own date.
  • Do not assume winning the appeal automatically erases a penalty that has become final in the meantime. Ask.

Keep the two files side by side, with both sets of dates on the front sheet.

The commonest addition of all — money the officer says you have not explained

For small businesses and for a great many individuals, the dispute is not about a section. It is about deposits, credits and loans that the officer says are unexplained, and the Act allows such amounts to be treated as income where the explanation is absent or unsatisfactory.

What almost nobody is told is what actually discharges that burden, so here it is. Three things, for each entry:

What has to be shownWhat actually shows it
Identity of the person the money came fromName, address, PAN — and something linking that person to you
Creditworthiness — that they could have paid itTheir bank statement, their return, their own source. A confirmation from somebody with no visible means proves little
Genuineness of the transactionBanking channel rather than cash, a written agreement, interest paid and TDS deducted where applicable, and repayment later if it was a loan

Two honest observations. A confirmation letter on its own, with nothing behind it, rarely carries a case — it satisfies the first limb and not the other two. And cash is the hardest thing to defend, whatever the truth of it, which is a reason to route things through a bank while it is still your choice rather than an argument.

Collect this material at the assessment stage. By the Tribunal, as the section further on explains, the door for new material has narrowed to a crack.

What actually works as a ground of appeal

Appellate authorities in tax see the same weak grounds every day, and they see the strong ones rather less often than they should.

Grounds that do workGrounds that do not, by themselves
The addition is contrary to the material actually on record — and here is the material“The officer did not understand my business”
A reply was filed and the order does not deal with it“The demand is far more than I earn”
No opportunity of being heard was given where it was required“I have been paying tax honestly for twenty years”
The provision applied does not cover these facts“Everybody in my trade does it this way”
The estimate has no basis — and here is what the records show“The assessment is arbitrary”, said without showing why
The same issue was decided in your favour in another year and nothing has changed“It is only a small amount”

The pattern is not subtle. What works is the sentence that ends with “and here is the document”. Which leads directly to the two sections that follow, and they are the heart of this page.

The Tribunal is the last place your facts are ever looked at

This is the most important structural fact in tax litigation and it is almost never explained to the person whose money it is.

The ladder is: the assessing officer, then the first appeal, then the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, then the High Court under Section 260A, then the Supreme Court. But the High Court appeal lies only where the case involves a substantial question of law, which the court itself formulates.

Read that against what a tax dispute usually is. Most tax disputes are not about the meaning of a section. They are about whether a loan was genuine, whether a supplier existed, whether an expense was incurred for the business, whether a deposit was explained. Those are questions of fact.

What that means for you, in one line

Every document, confirmation, statement and explanation that is not on the record by the time the Tribunal decides is, in practical terms, gone for good. There is no later. People treat the Tribunal as a rung on a ladder that continues upwards. On facts, it is the top of the ladder.

So the instruction that follows from it is unglamorous and absolute: put everything in, at the earliest stage you can, even material you think is obvious, even material you think they already have. The cost of filing a document that turns out to be unnecessary is nothing. The cost of not having filed one is the case.

Additional evidence — a much narrower door than people think

“We will produce it at the appeal stage” is said constantly and it rests on a misunderstanding.

An appellate authority is not obliged to take fresh evidence. The rules allow additional evidence only in defined situations — where the assessing officer refused to admit evidence that ought to have been admitted, where the appellant was prevented by sufficient cause from producing it, where the officer did not give sufficient opportunity, and similar. It is an application, it has to be supported, and the other side is heard on it.

So the honest version of the advice is this: the assessment stage is the stage. The time to produce the confirmation from the party, the bank statement, the delivery records and the agreement is when the officer asks, not when you are unhappy with what he did with their absence. We prepare income tax notice replies, and the single most useful thing about them is that they are filed with the documents attached.

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Section 253 — and the period most articles still get wrong

An appeal to the Appellate Tribunal is to be filed within two months from the end of the month in which the order is communicated to the assessee or to the Commissioner.

A great deal of material online still says sixty days, because that was the position before the provision was amended. The two formulations are not the same and they do not always give the same last date. Somebody counting sixty days from the date of the order, on the strength of an old article, can be out.

Work it out properly from the month of communication. Write the last date on the file. And where the department has appealed and you also have a grievance, note the cross-objection — it is filed within the period allowed after you receive notice of the department’s appeal, and it is a real opportunity that taxpayers routinely let go.

What the Tribunal is, and why it feels different

Worth saying plainly because the change surprises people. The Commissioner (Appeals) is an authority within the structure of the tax administration. The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal is an independent body outside it, and a bench ordinarily consists of a judicial member and an accountant member sitting together.

For a taxpayer, two practical consequences. The atmosphere is that of a tribunal hearing rather than a departmental proceeding, and for most people that is a relief. And the bench includes somebody who reads accounts professionally, which means a well-organised set of accounts and reconciliations is understood rather than merely received.

Section 254 governs the orders the Tribunal may pass, including on an application to rectify a mistake apparent from the record — which is a narrow remedy and not a second appeal, but it exists and it is occasionally the right thing.

The paper book, which is most of the work

At the Tribunal, the case is largely the paper book — the compilation of everything the bench needs, indexed and paginated, with each document identified and its place in the proceedings stated.

What makes one useful rather than merely thick

  • An index that says what each document is and at which stage it was filed, because whether something was before the officer matters.
  • Documents in the order the argument runs, not the order they were collected.
  • Legible copies. A faint photocopy of a ledger is a document nobody reads.
  • Reconciliations prepared as their own sheets, rather than expecting the bench to do arithmetic across three annexures.
  • Translations of anything not in the language of the proceeding, prepared in advance.
  • Nothing in it that was never filed below, unless it is the subject of a proper additional evidence application.

Assembling that is precisely our half of the work, and it is worth doing properly: a bench that can find the document in ten seconds engages with it, and one that cannot, does not.

If you are salaried — what actually goes wrong, and what it is not

Most of this page is written for somebody with a business. A salaried person’s tax problems are a different and much smaller set, and treating them as litigation is usually a mistake.

What went wrongWhat it usually needs
TDS deducted by the employer but not showing against youNot an appeal. Check the annual statement and the annual information statement, and take it up with the deductor — the credit has to be reported correctly by them
A deduction claimed and disallowed in processingUsually rectification, with the proof attached
An exemption such as house rent questionedThe documents — the agreement, the receipts, the payments through a bank. Assemble rather than argue
A refund not receivedFollow-up rather than litigation. Bank validation is the commonest cause
Income shown in the information statement that is not yoursRespond in the statement itself. Silence is taken as acceptance
An actual addition to income, after a proper assessmentThis one is an appeal, and the rest of this page applies

The annual information statement deserves a line of its own, because it is new enough that many people have never opened it. It shows what third parties — banks, registrars, employers, mutual funds — have reported about you. Look at it before you file, every year, and respond to anything in it that is wrong. Almost every intimation that frightens a salaried person later traces back to something that was sitting in there.

We handle intimation replies, TDS default notice replies and refund follow-up, and for most salaried readers those three are the whole of it.

What “faceless” changed for you in practice

Assessments and first appeals are now largely conducted electronically, without a face across a table, and it has changed what a taxpayer should do in ways nobody explains.

The record is everything, because there is no conversation. Where once an accountant could explain a ledger in ten minutes in a room, now the explanation exists only if it was uploaded as a document. A submission that says “as discussed” refers to a discussion that did not happen.

Deadlines are enforced by a system rather than by a person. The portal closes when it closes. An extension is something to request through the process, in time, not something to explain afterwards.

Check the portal yourself. A notice issued electronically is served when it is issued there, and somebody who relies entirely on their accountant to watch it can lose a period without ever having seen the notice. Log in monthly. It takes two minutes.

Ask for a hearing where the matter deserves one. Video hearings are granted on request in appropriate cases, and a complicated factual matter is often better for having one.

If what you have is a reassessment notice

A notice under Section 148 is not a demand. It is the beginning of a process to reassess income the department believes has escaped assessment, and how you deal with it at that stage shapes everything that follows.

Two practical points. The procedural requirements at this stage have been litigated a great deal in recent years, so what the department must do before issuing such a notice is a real question and a real ground — it is not a formality. And your reply matters: reply properly, on time, with documents, rather than treating it as an intrusion to be resisted.

We prepare Section 148 reassessment replies. Take advice before answering, not after the assessment order arrives with a figure on it.

Not everything is an appeal — the Section 143(1) case

Worth its own section because it saves people money.

A very large share of what taxpayers receive and panic about is an intimation under Section 143(1), and a very large share of those are arithmetic or matching differences: a TDS credit not picked up, a challan not matched, a deduction not read correctly, a figure entered in the wrong schedule.

Those are usually dealt with by rectification or a corrected filing rather than by litigation — faster, cheaper, and without anybody appearing anywhere. Read what arrives carefully before assuming you are in a dispute. We handle Section 143(1) intimation replies, TDS default notice replies and tax refund follow-up, and for a salaried person those three cover most of what actually goes wrong.

If you ignored a notice and an order has come anyway

It happens, often to people who were frightened rather than dishonest, and the position is recoverable more often than they assume.

Where a taxpayer does not respond, the officer proceeds to assess on best judgement — that is, he estimates. Estimates made without your material are rarely in your favour, and the figure that results can bear little relation to what the business actually did.

That order is appealable, delay in appealing can be condoned on sufficient cause, and the material you never filed can still, in the right circumstances, be brought in through an additional evidence application. None of that is easy and all of it is easier than it will be in another six months. Get the papers to somebody this week.

When recovery has already started

Attachment of a bank account, a notice to your debtors to pay the department instead of you, a demand set against a refund due to you for another year — recovery has its own machinery and it does not wait for the appeal.

Two things have to happen together: the appeal, and the stay application with a specific request to lift or restrain the recovery step already taken. Not one after the other.

And a practical note: where a refund for another year is adjusted against the disputed demand, that is something to raise rather than absorb quietly, because it can amount to recovery of a demand that is under challenge.

Is there a way to just settle it?

People ask, and the honest answer has three parts.

Within the ordinary machinery, yes in a limited sense. An addition can be accepted in part and appealed in part; a penalty can be answered on its own merits even where the addition stands; and an officer can be persuaded at the assessment stage itself, which is by a long way the cheapest place to resolve anything.

Governments have periodically offered dispute-resolution schemes under which pending matters can be closed on payment of a defined amount, with waiver of interest or penalty. These come and go, each has its own eligibility and its own window, and this page names none of them deliberately — a scheme described here would be out of date before most readers arrived. What is worth doing is asking your adviser, at the time you decide to litigate, whether anything of that kind is currently open and whether your matter fits. People miss these windows entirely.

What does not exist is an informal settlement. There is no negotiation with an officer over what you will pay, and anybody offering to arrange one is describing something that is not available and that would create a far worse problem than the demand. If that suggestion is made to you, the answer is no, and tell your adviser it was made.

GST is a different ladder — do not borrow this one

People with a GST notice read income-tax material and apply its timelines. They are not the same.

GST has its own appellate structure, its own periods, and its own pre-deposit requirements which work differently from the discretionary stay described on this page. Nothing on this page should be carried across.

We prepare GST notice replies and GST appeal filing documentation; the periods and requirements should be confirmed for GST separately, and quickly, because they are short.

The same issue across several years

Very common and badly handled. An officer takes a view on something — a particular expense, a method of valuation, a class of receipt — and then the same view appears in the next year’s order, and the next.

Three things follow, and they change how the whole thing should be run.

Do not let any year go by default. A year not appealed becomes final, and a finding that has become final in one year is an awkward thing to argue against in another. The cost of keeping a year alive is far smaller than the cost of having conceded it.

Ask for them to be heard together. Where the issue is identical, having the appeals heard together saves everybody time and avoids the possibility of inconsistent findings.

One good order is worth several years. If the point is decided in your favour and nothing material changes, that decision is what you carry into every later year — and it is also what you produce to an officer at the assessment stage to stop the same addition being made again. Which is why fighting properly in the first year is often the most economical thing available, even where that year’s amount alone would not justify it.

Keep one file per year but one running index across all of them, with the issue in the left column and each year’s status beside it. It sounds obvious and almost nobody does it.

Is it worth fighting? The arithmetic, honestly

Put a number against eachWhy
The disputed demand itselfThe starting figure, not the final one
Interest by the likely end dateSection 220(2) runs throughout. This is the number people omit
What a stay will require you to deposit meanwhileCash out now, whatever happens later
Professional cost across all the stages you may useNot just the first appeal
Your honest chance on the facts you can documentNot the facts as you know them. The facts you can prove
Years of attentionReal, and never costed

Where the addition is wrong and the documents exist, this arithmetic usually says fight, and you should. Where the documents do not exist and never did, it often says settle the matter and protect the years ahead instead. An adviser who runs this calculation with you before filing is doing the job; one who never mentions it is not.

If you win — what has to happen next

An order in your favour is not the end, and taxpayers who assume it is discover the gap months later.

Effect has to be given to it. The appellate order goes back for the demand to be revised and, where you have already paid, for the refund to be worked out. That is an administrative step somebody has to pursue, and it does not always happen on its own. Follow it up in writing, with the order attached.

Check what happened to any deposit you made. The twenty per cent paid to obtain a stay is your money. It should come back with whatever interest is due on it, and it will not come back because you are entitled to it — it comes back because somebody asked. Our refund follow-up page covers that chase.

Expect the possibility of a further appeal. The department appeals too, subject to its own monetary thresholds, so a win at the first appeal may not be the last word. Keep the file intact rather than clearing it out, and keep the paper book — if the matter goes up you will need exactly the same material again.

And use it. A favourable finding on an issue is the document to produce at the assessment stage in later years, before the same addition gets made again. That is the cheapest use of a hard-won order and most people never make it.

Where these sit in Delhi

The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal has benches in Delhi. First appeals are largely conducted electronically rather than in a building you visit.

No addresses, bench constitution or listing details appear here, for the same reason they appear nowhere on this site — they are administrative and they change. Confirm from the current official source or from your counsel’s clerk, and confirm again after any gap.

On the day of a hearing

Count security screening separately from the journey, carry government photo identity, and bring your own complete paper book even where everything has been filed.

One thing peculiar to this forum: bring the underlying records, not only the compilation. A question from the bench about one entry in one ledger is answered far better by producing the ledger than by promising to file it later — and in a matter where facts stop being examinable after this stage, later may not exist.

Free legal services, and where they fit here

The entitlement comes from the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, income is no bar at all for a woman, and the court complexes keep a legal services desk. The numbers are 1516 within Delhi and 15100 across the country.

In tax, this fits a narrower set of people than on our other pages — a salaried person or a very small proprietor facing a demand they cannot begin to meet, rather than a company. If that is your position, ask before the thirty days have gone rather than after.

The file, and how long to keep it

For the year in dispute: the return and its computation, the financial statements, the ledgers and bank statements, every notice received and every reply filed with its acknowledgement, the assessment order, the demand notice, and every document you produced during the assessment.

More generally: keep what supports a figure in your return for as long as the law allows that year to be reopened, and keep it in a form you can retrieve. The commonest reason an honest taxpayer loses is not dishonesty. It is that the confirmation which proved the point existed six years ago and nobody can find it now. Scan as you go, and name the files so a stranger could find them.

Where taxpayers lose this

What people doWhat it produces
Assume filing the appeal stops recoveryAn attached bank account while the appeal sits in a queue
File the appeal but not the stay applicationThe same thing, with the paperwork half done
Treat twenty per cent as a fee they must pay to appealCash paid out that a proper application might not have required
Count sixty days to the Tribunal from an old articleAn appeal filed out of time
Hold documents back “for the appeal”An additional evidence application that may not be allowed — and facts lost for good
Ignore a notice because it was frighteningA best judgement assessment built on an estimate
Appeal an intimation that only needed rectificationCost and delay for an arithmetic error
Argue fairness instead of producing the recordA ground nobody can act on
Never calculate the interest that will accrueA win that costs more than the original demand
Apply income-tax timelines to a GST noticeA missed period in an entirely different statute
Overlook Section 249(4) before filingAn appeal not entertained, with days gone from a thirty-day window

What to collect before anybody drafts

The assessment order and the demand notice, with proof of when each was served. The return and computation for the year. Financial statements, ledgers and bank statements. Every notice issued during the assessment and every reply you filed, with acknowledgements. The documents you produced then, and the ones you meant to. Any order for an earlier or later year on the same issue. And the record of any payment already made against the demand.

Add affidavits sworn before an oath commissioner where required, and translations prepared in advance. Where a document you need is held by a public authority, an RTI application is sometimes the quickest way to obtain it.

Our part of a tax file

Documentation and filing support, and nothing more. Nobody here is an advocate or a chartered accountant, nobody appears before any authority or tribunal, and nobody advises on what position to take. Our work is the appeal forms and statement of facts typed to your adviser’s instructions, the replies to notices, the applications including the stay application, appeal drafting for the Tribunal, the paper book compiled, indexed and paginated, the affidavits, translations, and certified copies.

What is argued, and whether to argue it at all, belongs to your counsel or your chartered accountant. Court work is for your advocate, whose fee is engaged and paid by you directly; we do not quote, collect or share it. The directory is free to open and free to write through, it runs A to Z, and no listing on it was bought.

What we decline on a tax matter

  • Preparing any document that states a transaction, an expense or a receipt we have been told did not happen. In tax work this is the request that arrives most often and it is refused in every version of it.
  • Backdating an agreement, a confirmation, a voucher or a ledger. Ever.
  • Obtaining or drafting a confirmation from a third party who has not actually given it.
  • Advising what position to take on an addition, whether to appeal, or what to offer. That decides your case and it belongs to your counsel or accountant.
  • Any suggestion that an officer, an assessment or a listing can be influenced. The conversation ends at that sentence.
  • Putting one advocate ahead of another or naming a best one. The directory is alphabetical, and that is the whole of it.
  • Printing, collecting or passing on what any advocate charges.
  • Holding your original records. Those stay with you.

What we charge, said up front

Each document carries its price on its own service page, visible before you order anything. Appeal fees and whatever a government office levies are shown apart from ours, since that money is theirs and never passes through us.

You are told the whole figure before work begins and none of it is taken in advance. And on a tax matter we will often say something that costs us work: where what you have is an intimation that needs a rectification rather than an appeal, that is what you will hear on the call.

Sources and a caution

  • The Income-tax Act, 1961 — Section 156 (notice of demand), Section 220(1) (thirty days to pay), Section 220(2) (interest where not paid in time), Section 220(6) (the Assessing Officer may treat the assessee as not being in default in respect of the disputed amount while an appeal is pending).
  • Section 246A — appeal to the Commissioner (Appeals) or the Joint Commissioner (Appeals), within thirty days of service of the order or of the notice of demand, with power to condone delay on sufficient cause.
  • Section 249(4) — tax due on the returned income to be paid before an appeal is admitted.
  • Section 253 — appeal to the Appellate Tribunal, to be filed within two months from the end of the month in which the order is communicated. Material still stating “sixty days” reflects the position before this was amended. Section 254 — orders of the Appellate Tribunal, including rectification of a mistake apparent from the record.
  • Section 260A — appeal to the High Court within one hundred and twenty days of receipt of the Tribunal’s order, and only where the case involves a substantial question of law. This is why the Tribunal is the final authority on questions of fact.
  • The twenty per cent commonly referred to for a stay pending first appeal comes from administrative instructions issued by the Board to assessing officers, not from the Act. Such instructions are revised, they allow for relief on different terms in appropriate cases, and the current position should be checked rather than assumed.
  • The Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 — entitlement to free legal services. Delhi income limits and helpline numbers are published by the Delhi State Legal Services Authority and are revised.
  • Bar Council of India Rules, Part VI Chapter II, Rule 36 — why nothing on this site ranks, rates or prices an advocate.
  • Deliberately not stated here: appeal fee slabs, penalty rates, the department’s own monetary thresholds for filing appeals, tribunal addresses and bench details, and how long matters take. Each of these is administrative, revised, or varies too much to state usefully. GST has an entirely separate structure and nothing on this page should be applied to it.
  • This page is general information about how tax appeals are structured. It is not tax advice or legal advice about any assessment, and the position on your own facts should come from a person who has read your order and your record.
FAQ

Tax demands and appeals — questions people ask

I have filed an appeal. Does that stop the tax demand?
No, and this is the single most expensive misunderstanding in tax litigation. Filing an appeal does not by itself stay anything. The demand raised under Section 156 remains payable, Section 220(1) gives thirty days, interest under Section 220(2) keeps running, and recovery can be started. A stay has to be applied for separately under Section 220(6), which lets the Assessing Officer treat you as not being in default while the appeal is pending. Two applications, not one.
What is the twenty per cent everybody talks about?
It is not in the Act. The Board issues administrative instructions to assessing officers on when to grant a stay pending the first appeal, and the figure commonly applied is twenty per cent of the disputed demand. Being administrative, it is revised from time to time and it is not an absolute rule — officers can and do grant relief on a lower or nil deposit in appropriate cases, and there are routes above the officer. Ask what the current position is rather than assuming the number.
How long do I have to appeal to the CIT(A)?
Thirty days. Section 246A provides the appeal to the Commissioner (Appeals) or the Joint Commissioner (Appeals), and the period runs from the date of service of the order or of the notice of demand. Delay can be condoned where sufficient cause is shown, but that is an application you have to make and support — not something that happens because you were busy.
And to the ITAT?
Here is where a great deal of stale advice circulates. The period is two months from the end of the month in which the order is communicated to you. Older articles still say sixty days, because that was the position before it was amended, and somebody relying on the old rule can miscount. Work it out properly from the month of communication, and write the last date down.
Why does everybody say the ITAT matters so much?
Because it is the last place your facts are looked at. From the Tribunal the appeal goes to the High Court under Section 260A, and that lies only on a substantial question of law. Which means any document, any explanation, any bit of evidence that did not get onto the record by the time the Tribunal decided is, in practical terms, gone for good. People treat the Tribunal as a step on the way up. It is the end of the road for facts.
Can I file new evidence at the appeal stage?
Only in limited circumstances, and it is an application in its own right rather than something you simply attach. The rules allow additional evidence where, for instance, the assessing officer refused to admit it, or you were prevented by sufficient cause from producing it. That is a much narrower door than people assume, which is why what you file during the assessment itself matters more than anything you plan to say later.
The order says things that are simply wrong about my business. Where does that get fixed?
At the appellate stage, and only if you put the material there. An appellate authority works on the record. “They did not understand my business” is not an argument by itself; the bank statements, the ledgers, the contracts, the confirmations from the parties concerned are. Assemble the material, and be prepared for it to be the whole of the case.
What is Section 249(4)?
A condition people discover at the wrong moment. Before an appeal is admitted, the tax due on the income returned has to have been paid. So a person who filed a return, did not pay the tax on it, and then wants to appeal an addition can find the appeal not entertained until that is dealt with. Check it before filing rather than after.
How is an appeal actually heard now?
First appeals are largely conducted electronically, with submissions and documents filed online and hearings held by video where granted. What has not changed is what wins: a clear statement of facts, a document for every assertion, and submissions that answer what the order actually said rather than restating the return. We prepare the CIT(A) appeal documentation; what is argued is your counsel’s.
Is the ITAT part of the tax department?
No, and the distinction matters when you walk in. The Commissioner (Appeals) is an authority within the framework of the department. The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal is an independent body outside it, with a judicial member and an accountant member sitting together. For a taxpayer, the change of atmosphere between the first appeal and the Tribunal is one of the things nobody warns them about, and generally it is a pleasant surprise.
Can the tax department appeal against me?
Yes, both sides appeal, and the department does so regularly. It is also subject to monetary thresholds fixed administratively, below which it is not supposed to file — which is why a taxpayer who has won a small matter often hears nothing further. The other thing to know is the cross-objection: where the department appeals, you can file a cross-objection within the period allowed after receiving notice of the appeal.
I got a notice under Section 148. Is that the same as a demand?
No. A reassessment notice is the beginning of a process, not the end of one, and how you deal with it at that stage shapes everything afterwards. It is also a stage with its own procedural requirements which have been the subject of a great deal of litigation. Reply properly and on time — we prepare Section 148 reassessment replies — and take advice before you answer, not after the assessment order arrives.
What about an intimation under Section 143(1)? Do I appeal that?
Often the answer is simpler than an appeal. A great many of these are arithmetic or matching differences — a TDS credit not picked up, a deduction not read correctly, a challan not matched — and are dealt with through rectification or a corrected filing rather than litigation. Read it carefully before assuming you are in a dispute; we prepare Section 143(1) intimation replies.
I ignored a notice for a year. How bad is it?
Bad, but not usually fatal, and the worst thing now would be to ignore it further. Non-response typically leads to a best judgement assessment, which means the officer estimates rather than examines — and estimates are rarely in your favour. That order is appealable, and delay in appealing can be condoned on sufficient cause. Get the papers to somebody this week and stop the clock where you can.
Recovery has already started — my bank account is attached.
Then two things need to happen at once: the appeal, and a stay application, with a request to lift the attachment. Do not treat the recovery as something to sort out after the appeal is decided; it will not wait. Take everything you have to counsel immediately, and take the demand notice and the recovery communication with you.
Does any of this apply to GST?
GST has its own appellate structure and its own timelines and pre-deposit requirements, and it is not the same as the income-tax ladder set out here. Do not apply one to the other. We handle GST notice replies and GST appeal filing documentation, and the periods there should be confirmed separately.
What is the difference between an appeal and a revision?
An appeal goes to an appellate authority and is your right, subject to the conditions. A revision is an application to a higher departmental authority to revise an order, and it is discretionary. They are alternatives in some situations rather than steps in a sequence, and choosing one can close the other. This is precisely the question to ask counsel before filing anything, because it is not reversible.
Is it worth appealing a small demand?
Sometimes honestly not, and it is worth doing the arithmetic rather than fighting on principle. Against the amount, set the professional cost, the interest that runs while it is pending, the years it takes, and the chance of success on the facts you can actually prove. A demand you are confident is wrong and can document is worth pursuing. A demand you dislike but cannot document with anything is usually worth settling and moving on.
Where does it go after the Tribunal?
Section 260A provides an appeal to the High Court within one hundred and twenty days from receipt of the Tribunal’s order, and only where the case involves a substantial question of law, which the court formulates. From there, further appeal is to the Supreme Court. How the High Court approaches an appeal of this kind is set out on our Delhi High Court page.
How long does the whole thing take?
Longer than anybody plans for, and too variable for a number on a web page to be honest. What you can plan for is the money: interest under Section 220(2) runs throughout, so a demand that stands at the end is larger than the one you started with. That arithmetic should be part of the decision to litigate rather than a discovery at the end of it.
I am a salaried person, not a business. Does any of this concern me?
It can, and the commonest situations are a deduction or exemption disallowed, a TDS credit not given, or a refund not received. Several of those are not appeals at all — they are rectification or follow-up matters, which are faster and cheaper. Our tax refund follow-up page covers the latter. Do not start an appeal until somebody has told you an appeal is the right instrument.
What documents should I be keeping?
Everything that supports a figure in your return, for as long as the law allows the department to come back to that year — and in a form you can actually retrieve. The single most common reason a genuinely honest taxpayer loses a case is not dishonesty. It is that the confirmation, the bank record or the agreement that proved the point existed six years ago and nobody can find it now.
Where does the ITAT sit in Delhi?
The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal has benches in Delhi. Addresses, bench constitution and cause lists are administrative and change, so confirm them from the current official source or from your counsel’s clerk rather than from a web page, including this one.
Can Legal Space Services appear for me?
No. We are a documentation and filing business, not a law or accountancy firm, and nobody here appears before any authority or tribunal. Our half is the paper — the appeal forms and statement of facts typed to your advocate’s or chartered accountant’s instructions, the paper book assembled and paginated, the affidavits, the translations, the certified copies. Court work is for your advocate, whose fee is engaged and paid by you directly; we do not quote, collect or share it.
What does your own work cost?
Every document carries its figure on its own service page, so you can read it before ordering. Appeal fees and anything a government office charges are listed apart from ours, because that money is theirs and never comes through us. You hear the total before work starts, and none of it is taken in advance.

Two applications, not one — and the second one is the urgent one.

Send us the assessment order and the demand notice. We will tell you what the dates actually are, what a complete appeal set would contain, and what a stay application needs attached to it — and put the directory in front of you, because the demand does not pause while anybody thinks about it. Searching it is free and no commission from anybody on it reaches us.

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