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Income-tax Act, 1961 · Chapter XX: Appeals and Revision · C.—Reference to High Court

Section 257: Statement of case to Supreme Court in certain cases

The Income-tax Act, 1961 was repealed by the Income-tax Act, 2025 from 1 April 2026.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

Under the old reference procedure, if High Courts had given conflicting decisions on a question of law, the Appellate Tribunal could refer the question directly to the Supreme Court.

  • This applied to applications against Tribunal orders passed before 1st October 1998.
  • The reference was made through the President of the Tribunal.

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

If, on [an application made against an order made under section 254 before the 1st day of October, 1998, under section 256] the Appellate Tribunal is of the opinion that, on account of a conflict in the decisions of High Courts in respect of any particular question of law, it is expedient that a reference should be made direct to the Supreme Court, the Appellate Tribunal may draw up a statement of the case and refer it through its President direct to the Supreme Court.

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 257