The Gujarat high court on Friday disposed of petitions seeking extension of deadline in filing of Tax Audit Report (TAR) and Income Tax Returns (ITR), complaining about technical glitches on I-T portal, after top officials of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) gave an assurance that the problems faced by any assessee would be immediately addressed.

The department also filed an affidavit and described in detail how it has created a team of officials to immediately address the problem that an assessee was facing.

The petitions were filed after the assessees and tax practitioners faced technical glitches in filing TAR and ITR on the new I-T portal.

Two senior officials of CBDT assured the HC of problem resolution and said that a mechanism had been set up to help assessees file their TAR and ITR. The department also informed the high court that an email ID has been created for assessees facing problems in uploading TAR.

The bench of Justice J B Pardiwala and Justice Nisha Thakore suggested the department could create one more e-mail address for those who find difficulty in filing ITR. This suggestion was immediately accepted by the officers.

One grievance the petitioners had raised was that the department is to levy interest under section 234A of IT Act for delay in filing. The court has kept this issue open for adjudication because the deadline for filing TAR and ITR was already extended by the CBDT by one month.