Belated Voluntary Loss Return permitted if filed before assessment, enabling carry forward under section 24(2).

Whether a loss-return filed after the period in the general notice but before assessment qualifies for carry forward under section 24(2) is answered affirmatively: a voluntary belated loss-return filed before assessment is a valid return and may be treated as a return for purposes of determining and carrying forward losses. This follows from construing the mechanism in section 22(2A) together with the general permissive provision in section 22(3); absence of an express exclusion in 22(2A) means the post-notice timing rule does not negate the availability of belated voluntary returns for loss carry forward.

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Issues: Whether losses returned belatedly after the period specified in the general notice require in law to be determined and carried forward under section 24(2) of the Income-tax Act, 1961.

Analysis: The question turns on the relationship between section 22(2A), which prescribes a mechanism and time for loss-returns where no notice under section 22(2) is served, and section 22(3), which permits furnishing a return or revised return at any time before assessment. Section 22(2A) provides that a return filed as therein prescribed shall be treated as a return under section 22(1) and that all provisions of the Act shall apply accordingly. Prior decisions establish that a voluntary return filed before assessment is a valid return under section 22(1) for purposes of preventing an assessment that ignores that return. Nothing in the text of section 22(2A) was shown to repeal or exclude the general operative provision of section 22(3) permitting belated voluntary returns before assessment. The consistency of treating a belated voluntary loss-return as a return under section 22(1), together with the absence of an express limitation in section 22(2A) negating section 22(3), supports the availability of carry forward of losses where a loss-return is filed before assessment.

Conclusion: A return showing losses filed before assessment, though belated, is a valid return for the purpose of determining and carrying forward losses under section 24(2) of the Income-tax Act, 1961; answer to the referred question is in the affirmative.

Ratio Decidendi: A voluntary return filed at any time before assessment under section 22(3) operates as a valid return for the purposes of section 24(2), and the insertion of section 22(2A) does not eliminate the applicability of section 22(3) to belated loss-returns absent an express statutory exclusion.

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