CASE NAME: Sojitz Asia Pte. Ltd. v. The Commissioner of Income Tax (International Tax), New Delhi & Ors.
CASE NUMBER: W.P.(C) 7495/2026 & CM APPL. 36332 / 2026
COURT: High Court of Delhi
DATE: 7 September, 2026
Quorum: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Dinesh Mehta and Hon’ble Mr. Justice Rajneesh Kumar Gupta
FACTS
Sojitz Asia Pte. Ltd. earned interest income of Rs.7,58,90,455/-, reflected in Form 26AS for assessment year 2016-17, offered to tax and paid on. The deductor later revised that form, moving the entry to assessment year 2018-19. Not realising the same, the petitioner offered the same amount to tax again for 2018-19, going by the revised form, and ended up paying tax twice on one income.
On discovering this, the petitioner filed three rectification applications under Section 154 (4 March, 7 June and 31 July 2019), which were kept pending for three years before rejection on 26 December 2022, the Assessing Officer holding he lacked power to reduce the returned gross total income. A revision under Section 264 was dismissed on 30 March 2021 as premature, and a second revision application was dismissed on 28 March 2024 as time-barred, with a suggestion to seek condonation under Section 119(2)(b).
The petitioner then applied on 31 July 2024 under Section 119(2)(b) for leave to file a revised return for assessment year 2016-17 excluding the disputed amount. The Commissioner rejected this on 9 December, 2025 holding that condoning beyond six years requires extraordinary circumstances which the petitioner failed to show and that the delay was unjustified and not addressed by CBDT Circular No.9/2915. The petitioner challenged this before the High Court.
ISSUES
- Whether condonation of delay under Section 119(2)(b) was rightly refused despite the same income being taxed twice.
- What counts as a “special circumstance” or “genuine hardship” under Section 119(2)(b).
- Whether the Revenue can keep tax collected twice on one income merely because the assessee first went to the wrong forum.
LEGAL PROVISIONS
- Section 119(2)(b), Income Tax Act, 1961 – power to admit a return beyond the prescribed period to avoid genuine hardship.
- Section 154, Income Tax Act, 1961 – rectification of mistakes apparent from the record.
- Section 264, Income Tax Act, 1961 – revision of orders in favour of the assessee.
- CBDT Circular No. 9/2015 dated 9 June 2015 – guidelines on condoning delay in refund and loss claims.
ARGUMENTS
PETITIONER: Mr. Vishal Kalra argued that the Commissioner took a revenue-oriented, technical view instead of a justice-oriented one. The double offer of income was a plain slip caused by the deductor revising Form 26AS without notice, and the petitioner had pursued a remedy since 2019, not sat on its rights.
RESPONDENT: Mr. Siddharth Sinha submitted that the petitioner had moved from one wrong remedy to another and could not blame the Revenue for the six-year delay, and that the Commissioner rightly rejected the application since the petitioner had shown neither that the income was unrelated to assessment year 2016-17 nor genuine hardship.
ANALYSIS
The Bench found the facts undisputed: the same interest income was taxed for two years only because the deductor altered Form 26AS after the petitioner had already paid tax on it once. The return for 2018-19 was filed bona fide, going by the revised form, and the double taxation surfaced only afterward.
The Court held the petitioner had not been idle. Rectification applications were filed within a year of the mistake surfacing, and each later step, Section 154, then Section 264 twice, and finally Section 119(2)(b), followed from how the previous one was disposed of. The six years were attributable to how the authority handled each application, not to any lapse by the petitioner.
On “special circumstances” under Section 119(2)(b), the Court held the expression cannot be confined to a fixed formula and must be read from the facts of the case. Paying tax twice on the same income is itself a hardship, making this a clear case for exercising the discretion the provision confers. Since tax on a given income can be charged once, not twice, refusing relief would leave the Union of India unjustly enriched.
JUDGMENT
The petition was allowed. In the present case, the order dated 9 December 2025 of the Commissioner of Income Tax (International Taxation-3, Delhi) was quashed and the application of petitioner under Section 119(2)(b) dated 31 July 2024 was granted permission. The petitioner was permitted to file a revised return for assessment year 2016-17 by 31 October 2026, with the Assessing Officer to decide within three months of filing.
CONCLUSION
The ruling confirms that Section 119(2)(b) exists to prevent unfairness, not to reward procedural neatness. Where an assessee has plainly paid tax twice on the same income through no fault of its own, authorities cannot rely on the delay or the absence of a textbook explanation to keep money never due to them. For assessees facing similar mismatches from changes to Form 26AS, the judgment signals that courts will look past procedural missteps where the assessee has acted diligently in substance.
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WRITTEN BY: HARSHMEET KAUR SUDAN
Sojitz Asia Pte. Ltd. v. The Commissioner Of Income Tax (International Tax), New Delhi & Ors
