Section 269H — Appeal to High Court

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

Section 269H — Appeal to High Court

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 It stands superseded by Chapter XX-C and, for current transactions, by section 50C / section 56(2)(x).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 further appeal to the High Court, on a question of law, against an order of the Appellate Tribunal under section 269G, at the instance of the Commissioner or any aggrieved person, within sixty days.

Litigation profile: Second appeal confined to questions of law; findings of fact (valuation) ordinarily not disturbed.

A. COMMENTARY

Scope

Section 269H confines the High Court's jurisdiction to questions of law arising out of the Tribunal's order. Concurrent findings of fact — typically on fair market value and whether understatement was proved — are not reopened unless perverse or unsupported by evidence.

Illustration

Madho Properties shows the boundary in operation: the High Court accepted the Tribunal's valuation method as a matter within its fact-finding province and dismissed the Revenue's appeal. Vimlaben and Bani Roy Chowdhury, although writ matters, define the legal questions (twin conditions, presumptions, jurisdiction) that a section 269H appeal would raise.

Candour

No distinct merits doctrine attaches to section 269H itself; it is the ordinary law-question gateway.

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 to High Court.

269H. (1) The Principal Commissioner or Commissioner or any person aggrieved by any order of the Appellate Tribunal under section 269G may, within sixty days of the date on which he is served with notice of such order under that section, prefer an appeal against such order to the High Court on any question of law :

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

(2) An appeal under sub-section (1) shall be heard by a Bench of not less than two Judges of the High Court and the provisions of section 259 shall apply in relation to any such appeal as they apply in relation to a case referred to the High Court under section 256.

(3) The costs of the appeal shall be in the discretion of the High Court.

C. AUTHORITIES

Candour rule: section 269H is a law-question appeal; the cognate decisions define the legal questions and the limits of interference with fact.

Questions of law versus findings of fact

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.