Section 269G — Appeal Against Order for Acquisition

CHAPTER XX-A — ACQUISITION OF IMMOVABLE PROPERTIES IN CERTAIN CASES OF TRANSFER TO COUNTERACT EVASION OF TAX

Section 269G — Appeal against order for acquisition

Case Laws & Commentary — Income-tax Act, 1961 (as amended by the Finance Act, 2026) — bharattax.co Treatise

Status: Historic / spent. Chapter XX-A was inserted by the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Act, 1972, with effect from 15 November 1972, and does not apply to transfers of immovable property made after 30 September 1986 (section 269RR). It stands superseded by Chapter XX-C and, for current transactions, by section 50C / section 56(2)(x).

Finance Act, 2026: No amendment. The Finance Act, 2026 does not touch any provision of Chapter XX-A.

Mechanism: Provides a first appeal to the Appellate Tribunal against an order of acquisition under section 269F, available to the transferor, transferee or any other person interested, within the prescribed period, with power to condone delay.

Litigation profile: Appellate machinery; disputes turned on limitation, locus and the Tribunal's power to re-appraise valuation.

A. COMMENTARY

The appeal

Section 269G channels challenges to a section 269F acquisition order into a statutory first appeal before the Appellate Tribunal. Standing is wide — transferor, transferee or any person interested — and the Tribunal may condone delay on sufficient cause. The appeal is a full re-hearing on facts and law, including valuation.

Valuation re-appraised on appeal

Madho Properties is the model: the Tribunal re-examined the valuation, accepted the belting method, and the High Court declined to disturb it. The Tribunal is thus the principal fact-finding forum on fair market value and understatement within the Chapter.

Candour

Beyond the re-appraisal illustrated in Madho Properties, there is little reported law peculiar to section 269G; general appellate principles apply.

B. STATUTORY TEXT (verbatim)

Reproduced verbatim from the Income-tax Act, 1961, as amended up to the Finance Act, 2025 (the Finance Act, 2026 makes no change). Page-header/footer artefacts of the source PDF have been removed; wording, clause-lettering and punctuation are unaltered.

Appeal against order for acquisition.

269G. (1) An appeal may be preferred to the Appellate Tribunal against the order for the acquisition of any immovable property made by the competent authority under section 269F,—

(a) by the transferor or the transferee or any other person referred to in sub-section (8) of that section, within a period of forty-five days from the date of such order or a period of thirty days from the date of service of a copy of the order on such person under the said sub-section, whichever period expires later ;

(b) by any other person interested in such immovable property, within forty-five days from the date of such order :

Provided that the Appellate Tribunal may, on an application made in this behalf before the expiry of the said period of forty-five days or, as the case may be, thirty days, permit, by order, the appeal to be presented within such further period as may be specified therein if the applicant satisfies the Appellate Tribunal that he has sufficient cause for not being able to present the appeal within the said period of forty-five days or, as the case may be, thirty days.

(2) Every appeal under this section shall be in the prescribed form and shall be verified in the prescribed manner and shall be accompanied by a fee of two hundred rupees.

(3) The Appellate Tribunal shall fix a day and place for the hearing of the appeal and shall give notice of the same to the appellant and to the competent authority.

(4) The Appellate Tribunal may, after giving the appellant and the competent authority an opportunity of being heard, pass such orders thereon as it thinks fit.

(5) The Appellate Tribunal may, at any time within thirty days from the date of the order, with a view to rectifying any mistake apparent from the record, amend any order passed by it under sub-section (4) and shall make such amendment if the mistake is brought to its notice by the appellant or the competent authority:

Provided that if any such amendment is likely to affect any person prejudicially, it shall not be made without giving to such person a reasonable opportunity of being heard.

(6) The Appellate Tribunal shall send a copy of any orders passed under this section to the appellant and to the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner.

(7) Save as provided in section 269H, orders passed by the Appellate Tribunal on appeal shall be final.

(8) Every appeal under this section shall be disposed of as expeditiously as possible and endeavour shall be made to dispose of every such appeal within ninety days from the date on which it is presented.

(9) The provisions of section 255 (except sub-section (3) thereof) shall, so far as may be, apply in relation to the powers, functions and proceedings of the Appellate Tribunal under this section as they apply in relation to the powers, functions and proceedings of the Appellate Tribunal under Chapter XX.

C. AUTHORITIES

The Tribunal is the fact-finding appellate forum; valuation and the twin conditions are re-appraised there.

Scope of the appeal — valuation and merits re-appraised

CIT, West Bengal-II v. Madho Properties Ltd. — Calcutta High Court, per Dipak Kumar Sen & C.K. Banerji JJ (decided 12 September 1980)

Held The 'belting method' of valuing urban land (the front belt valued highest and successive rear belts at a discount by distance from the road) is a scientific and acceptable mode of arriving at fair market value when supported by data; it was approved following Mathura Prosad Rajgharia v. State of West Bengal (SC) and Smt. Tribeni Devi v. Collector, Ranchi (SC).

Also Reaffirmed that the section 269C(2) presumptions cannot be invoked at the initiation stage; the Tribunal's adoption of the belting method was upheld and the Revenue's appeal dismissed.

CIT v. Smt. Vimlaben Bhagwandas Patel and Smt. Kamlaben Kanjibhai Patel — [1979] 118 ITR 134 (Gujarat) (decided 25 January 1979)

Facts Notice under section 269D(1) initiating acquisition of two industrial sheds transferred below the competent authority's estimate of fair market value; the transferee challenged initiation.

Held The leading judgment on Chapter XX-A. The acquisition machinery is expropriatory and penal in character and must be construed strictly. Initiation under section 269C(1) requires the competent authority to entertain reason to believe BOTH limbs of the 'twin conditions' — (i) that the fair market value exceeds the apparent consideration (understatement), and (ii) that the consideration was not truly stated with the ulterior object in clause (a) or (b) (reduction/evasion of the transferor's tax or concealment by the transferee). The statutory presumptions in section 269C(2) belong to the post-initiation adjudicatory stage (section 269F) and cannot supply the reason to believe at the threshold.

Also Where the authority records more than one ground, the initiation is not vitiated merely because one ground is later found defective, so long as a valid ground survives. Reasons must have a rational nexus with the material.