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Income-tax Act, 1961 · Chapter XVII: Collection and Recovery of Tax · D.—Collection and recovery

Section 222: Certificate to Tax Recovery Officer

The Income-tax Act, 1961 was repealed by the Income-tax Act, 2025 from 1 April 2026. The text is kept here because the judgments below apply it.

In plain words

When an assessee fails to pay tax, the Tax Recovery Officer can issue a certificate stating the arrears. The Officer may then recover the amount by attaching and selling movable or immovable property, arresting the assessee, or appointing a receiver. Property transferred to specific family members without adequate consideration after 1st day of June, 1973, is treated as the assessee's property for recovery purposes.

  • The Tax Recovery Officer draws up a certificate specifying the amount of arrears due from the defaulting assessee.
  • Recovery methods include attachment and sale of movable property, attachment and sale of immovable property, arrest and detention, or appointing a receiver.
  • Property transferred to a spouse, minor child, son's wife, or son's minor child without adequate consideration after 1st day of June, 1973, is included in the assessee's property.
  • Property transferred to a minor child or son's minor child remains included for recovering arrears due for periods prior to the child attaining majority.
  • The Tax Recovery Officer may take action under this section even if proceedings for recovery by other modes have already been initiated.

Example: If an assessee owes tax and transferred a house to their spouse without payment after 1st day of June, 1973, the Tax Recovery Officer can treat that house as the assessee's property and attach it to recover the arrears.

A simplified explanation, prepared with AI assistance from the official text below and checked automatically against it for numbers and cross-references. The official text is the law and prevails over this summary. Not legal advice.

Official text

(1) [When an assessee is in default or is deemed to be in default in making a payment of tax, the Tax Recovery Officer may draw up under his signature a statement in the prescribed formspecifying the amount of arrears due from the assessee (such statement being hereafter in this Chapter and in the Second Schedule referred to as —certificate‖) and shall proceed to recover from such assessee the amount specified in the certificate by one or more of the modes mentioned below, in accordance with the rules laid down in the Second Schedule—]

(a) attachment and sale of the assessee‘s movable property;

(b) attachment and sale of the assessee‘s immovable property;

(c) arrest of the assessee and his detention in prison;

(d) appointing a receiver for the management of the assessee‘s movable and immovable properties. [Explanation.—For the purposes of this sub-section, the assessee‘s movable or immovable property shall include any property which has been transferred, directly or indirectly on or after the 1st day of June, 1973, by the assessee to his spouse or minor child or son‘s wife or son‘s minor child, otherwise than for adequate consideration, and which is held by, or stands in the name of, any of the persons aforesaid; and so far as the movable or immovable property so transferred to his minor child or his son‘s minor child is concerned, it shall, even after the date of attainment of majority by such minor child or son‘s minor child, as the case may be, continue to be included in the assessee‘s movable or immovable property for recovering any arrears due from the assessee in respect of any period prior to such date.] [(2) The Tax Recovery Officer may take action under sub-section (1), notwithstanding that proceedings for recovery of the arrears by any other mode have been taken.]

Source: India Code (Legislative Department), the text of the Act as it stood before its repeal. Words in square brackets [ ] were inserted or substituted by later amending Acts, and *** marks words omitted by an amendment. The amendment footnotes are not reproduced here. Official text on India Code.

Supreme Court judgments citing the section 222