11 Years of Broken Promises: Gujarat High Court Finally Pulls Up CBDT for Repeatedly Failing to Release ITR Forms and Utilities on Time

Every salaried employee and business owner in India dreads the income tax filing season. Every year, millions of taxpayers — and the Chartered Accountants and tax professionals who assist them — wait anxiously for the Income Tax Department to release the ITR (Income Tax Return) forms and the software utilities needed to file those returns online. And year after year, these utilities arrive late, glitches plague the portal, and taxpayers end up scrambling against deadlines that were not of their making.

This is not a new problem. In 2015, the Gujarat High Court had already issued a clear direction: make the ITR forms and filing utilities available by 1 April of the relevant assessment year — the very start of the filing season. Eleven years later, the same court has been forced to confront the same problem — because the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has simply not complied. On 7 April 2026, the Gujarat High Court delivered a sharp rebuke, directed CBDT to file a formal affidavit proposing remedial measures, and listed the matter for urgent hearing on 27 April 2026 at the very top of the board’s order list.

Facts and Issues of the Case

The Chartered Accountants Association, Surat (CAAS), one of India’s oldest and most active professional bodies representing over 4,000 Chartered Accountants, filed a writ petition (Special Civil Application No. 16428 of 2025) before the Gujarat High Court raising a set of serious and long-standing grievances about the Income Tax Department’s e-filing portal and its systemic failures.

The core facts were damning. Back in 2015, the Gujarat High Court — in Special Civil Application No. 15075 of 2015 — had issued a categorical direction to CBDT: ITR forms and utilities for e-filing of income tax returns must ordinarily be made available by 1 April of every assessment year. This was not an aspirational goal; it was a court order. Eleven years passed. Not only was the order never complied with, but by 7 April 2026 — the 7th day of Assessment Year 2026-27 — CBDT had not released a single ITR utility or filing schema for the current year either. The income tax e-filing portal was simply unable to accept any return.

The petitioner placed the following specific issues before the Court:

• Persistent and repeated delay in releasing ITR forms and filing utilities, despite the 2015 court direction requiring April 1 availability.
• Frequent and unexplained glitches on the income tax e-filing portal, making it technically impossible for taxpayers to file returns even when they are ready.
• Arbitrary validation errors thrown up by the portal — rejecting returns for reasons that are technically incorrect or inconsistently applied.
• The cascading consequence of these delays: taxpayers who file their returns on time but face portal failures are still being charged interest under Section 234A and Section 234B of the Income Tax Act for late payment of advance tax — interest they should not owe, because the delay was the department’s, not theirs.

The Central Legal Issue Before the Court: Can a government body repeatedly fail to comply with a High Court direction for 11 years — causing systemic hardship to millions of taxpayers — without consequence? And what obligation does CBDT owe to taxpayers to ensure that the infrastructure for filing returns is genuinely available on time?

Observations by the Court

The Division Bench of Justice A.S. Supehia and Justice Pranav Trivedi did not mince words. The Court recorded that the petition raised ‘very serious issues relating to the functioning of the respondent-Department and the hurdles faced due to non-compliance with the orders of this Court as well as due to the lack of proper technical monitoring of the portal.’

The Bench then made the single most striking observation of the order: despite 11 years having passed since the 2015 direction requiring April 1 availability of ITR utilities, the Department was still not adhering to that order. The Court used the phrase pointedly: ‘Even after the passage of 11 years, the respondent-Department is not adhering to such directions.’ This is not language that courts use lightly. It signals an institutional failure at the highest levels of tax administration.

The Court also took cognisance of the real-world impact of this non-compliance. When utilities are not available on time, taxpayers cannot file on time. When they cannot file on time due to portal failures not of their making, the system still generates interest demands against them. This creates a situation of profound unfairness: the taxpayer is ready and willing to comply, but is prevented from doing so by the very government that will then penalise them for the resulting delay.

The Court further noted that this was not a case of a one-time failure or a genuine technical emergency. It was a pattern — a decade-long pattern — of the same problem recurring year after year, with the Department consistently failing to implement the kind of systemic fixes that would prevent it.

The Law Applicable

The legal framework underlying this petition rests on several well-established principles:

First, the binding nature of court directions. When a High Court issues a direction to a government body — as the Gujarat High Court did in 2015, directing CBDT to release ITR utilities by April 1 each year — that direction is not advisory. It is binding. A government body’s continued non-compliance with a court order is contempt of court, and the courts have the power to enforce compliance through a range of mechanisms, including directing the filing of affidavits, imposing costs, and in egregious cases, initiating contempt proceedings.

Second, Section 119 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (now carried forward under the Income Tax Act, 2025) empowers CBDT to issue instructions to subordinate authorities. It also carries with it the implicit obligation that CBDT must exercise this power responsibly — including by ensuring that the administrative infrastructure necessary for compliance (ITR forms, utilities, and a functioning portal) is made available to taxpayers in a timely manner.

Third, the principle of taxpayer fairness under Article 14 and Article 19 of the Constitution. The right of a taxpayer to comply with the law — and to be judged fairly for their compliance — is a fundamental aspect of the rule of law. Where the state’s own administrative failures make compliance impossible and then penalise taxpayers for non-compliance, the courts have consistently intervened. The Gujarat High Court’s 2015 order was itself grounded in this principle.

Fourth, Sections 234A and 234B of the Income Tax Act impose interest on taxpayers for late payment of advance tax and late filing of returns. Where such defaults are caused by the Department’s own portal failures, taxpayers have strong grounds to contest such interest — a point that the CAAS raised squarely in the current petition.

Conclusion by the Court — What Happens Next

The Gujarat High Court’s order of 7 April 2026 directed CBDT to file a formal affidavit before the next date of hearing — 27 April 2026 — suggesting concrete and specific measures to resolve the issues raised in the writ petition. The Court issued a clear warning: failure to file this affidavit will invite ‘a serious view’ from the Bench. The matter has been listed at the very top of the board on 27 April — a signal of urgency that the court intended the Department to take seriously.

This order is significant for four reasons. First, it puts CBDT on formal notice that continued non-compliance will have legal consequences. Second, by requiring an affidavit with ‘concrete remedial measures’, the Court is asking not just for acknowledgement but for a genuine plan of action. Third, the matter is now a matter of public record — making CBDT’s future compliance (or non-compliance) fully visible. Fourth, the petition has the backing of over 24 professional and trade bodies across India who have made representations on portal-related issues, giving the court a broad picture of systemic failure rather than an isolated complaint.

For India’s 4 lakh-plus Chartered Accountants and millions of taxpayers, this order matters. The income tax portal is not an optional convenience — it is the only legally permitted pathway for filing returns. When it is unavailable, broken, or launches too late, it is the taxpayer who suffers. The Gujarat High Court has now formally recognised this as an institutional failure that demands institutional accountability.

What This Means for Taxpayers Right Now: As of 13 April 2026, no ITR utility for AY 2026-27 has been released. You cannot file your return yet — and that is the Department’s failure, not yours. If you face interest demands (Section 234A/234B) arising from delays caused by portal non-availability, you may have grounds to contest them — particularly once the Court’s order provides a formal record of the Department’s non-compliance. Watch for CBDT’s affidavit and the next hearing on 27 April 2026. Any extension of deadlines or remedial measures announced by CBDT will directly affect your filing timeline.