The Delhi High Court has directed Private Secretaries of Supreme Court and High Court judges who have filed their income tax returns under the new tax regime, pursuant to the Court's earlier interim order concerning the taxability of judicial allowances, to furnish details including their PAN and return particulars to the Income Tax Department.

The division bench of Justices Dinesh Mehta and Rajneesh Kumar Gupta passed the direction while dealing with an application moved by the Income Tax Department seeking modification of the Court's earlier order dated July 22, 2026.

Under the earlier order, the Court had directed that income tax returns filed by judges covered by the interim order “shall not be processed” pending consideration of the challenge concerning the tax treatment of judicial allowances.

The Income Tax Department submitted that the direction created a procedural difficulty because income tax returns are processed electronically through computer-generated programming at the Centralised Processing Centre (CPC). The software, it was submitted, cannot identify whether a particular return belongs to a sitting High Court or Supreme Court judge.

To address the issue, the Court directed Private Secretaries of judges who have already filed their returns under the new regime pursuant to the July 22 interim order to furnish the following details to the Income Tax Department by August 18:

• Name of the judge
• Assessment year
• Permanent Account Number (PAN)
• Date of filing of return
• Acknowledgment number of the return

The Court directed the Department not to process the returns of judges in respect of whom such details are received.

The Court further directed that if a judge now proposes to file a return or revised return under the new regime pursuant to the July 22 interim order, his or her Private Secretary may furnish the same details within 12 hours of filing the return.

The Court further ordered that if returns of judges covered by its earlier and present orders have already been processed and a demand has been raised, such demand shall remain in abeyance pending adjudication of the writ petition.

Similarly, if any amount is found refundable, the same shall not be refunded. If a refund has already been made, it shall remain subject to the outcome of the writ petition.

The dispute arises from a challenge by the Delhi Tax Bar Association to the Office Memorandum issued by the CBDT, which, according to the petitioner, denied judges opting for the new tax regime the benefit of specified judicial allowances under the Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Act, 1958 and the High Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Act, 1954.

The matter will now be heard on September 3.

Appearance: For Petitioner: Mr. Sachit Jolly, Sr. Advocate with Mrs. Mansha Anand, Mr. Sohum Dua, Mr. Abyudaya Shankar Bajpai, Ms.Saloni Ray, Mr. Ghunaim Siddiqui, Ms. Manvi and Mr. Ramanand Roy, Advocates. For Respondents: Mr. Shlok Chandra, SSC along with Ms. Naincy Jain and Ms. Madhavi Shukla, JSCs and Mr. Udit Dad, Advocate for R-2. Mr. Naveen Gupta, PDIT, Mr. Aditya R., Mr. Sudhendra Kumar, Mr. Prabhakar, Addl. DITs, Mr. N. Sairaj and Mr. Nishant Rao, JDITs and Mr. Somsekhar, DDIT. Tags judgesIncome-Tax

Case Title : Delhi Tax Bar Association Through Its Secretary K G Bansal v. Union of India & Anr.

Case Number : W.P.(C) 9365/2026

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