THROUGH Finance Act, 2021, amendments were made to the provisions of Chapter XIX-B of the Act dealing with Advance Rulings. The Finance Act, 2021 provided that the Authority for Advance Rulings shall cease to operate with effect from such date, as may be notified by the Central Government in the Official Gazette. Later, the Central Government, vide Notification S.O. 3562(E), dated 01.09.2021, notified September 01, 2021 as the date with effect from which the Authority for Advance Rulings (AAR) shall cease to operate. Sections 245N to 245W of the Chapter provide for the power the Central Government to constitute a Board for Advance Rulings (BAR), the procedure to be followed by such Board, powers of the Authority etc.

Sub-section (3) of section 245Q of the Act provides that an applicant may withdraw an application within 30 days from the date on which such application is made. After AAR was made ineffective, certain applications which were filed before the erstwhile AAR, in which no order under sub-section (2) of section 245R had been passed, were transferred to the newly constituted BAR under sub-section (4) of section 245Q. In case of all those pending applications transferred to the BAR, the period of thirty days has already elapsed.

However, representations have been received by the BAR, from many of the applicants pointing out that their applications are still pending for disposal, and that these applications were filed before AAR to get certainty on taxability of the transactions with an intent to get a ruling from a quasi-judicial forum in a time-bound manner. However, due to various reasons like change in constitution of BAR forum, non-binding nature of the ruling (as it is made appealable to High Court), substantial passage of time, and other commercial reasons, these applicants wish to withdraw their applications.

In view of the foregoing, it is proposed to amend section 245Q to allow application for withdrawal by the 31st of October, 2024 for the transferred applications before BAR (from AAR) in cases where order under sub-section (2) of section 245R has not been passed. It is further proposed to provide that on receipt of an application under the proviso to sub-section (4) of section 245Q, the Board for Advance Rulings may, by an order, reject the application referred to in sub-section (1) thereof as withdrawn on or before the 31st day of December, 2024.

This amendment will take effect from the 1st day of October, 2024.