Security arrangements for maintaining assessment records. - Income Tax - 930/CBDT

INSTRUCTION NO. 930/CBDT Dated : March 4, 1976 Attention is invited to Board's Instruction No. 929 dated 4-3-1976 issued from file No. 375/2/76-IT(B) wherein a revised ad-hoc procedure for write off of outstanding demands for more than 5 years has been prescribed. Such procedure covers cases where the arrears have been outstanding on account of the non-availability of assessment records/detailed addresses of the assessees. 2. While the ad-hoc procedure had to be revised, the Board are deeply concerned at the situation in which assessment/recovery records of some of the assessees become untraceable. You are requested to take stringent measures to ensure that the assessment records are not purloined. Security arrangements in this behalf should be strengthened and officials should be held accountable even when the assessment records move from person to person. As far as possible and, in any case, in cases not covered under the ad-hoc procedure for write off of tax arrears, attempts should be made to re-construct the files from registers or from the reports sent to higher authorities or on the basis of certificates/correspondence with the T.R.O. etc. Further, responsibility should be fixed and action taken, where possible, against persons concerned. 3. With the withdrawal of the Functional Scheme, it is hoped that specified clerk/clerks working under each I.T.O. has been/have been made responsible for the safe custody of the assessment records and that there will be no instance of the loss/misplacement of assessment records in future. The Board would also like to draw your attention to Instruction No. 717 dated 12-7-1974 and reiterated vide Instruction No. 899 dated 20-11-1975 wherein, among others, full addresses and Permanent Account Numbers are required to be recorded invariably in the Demand and Collection Register while entering the original demand or carrying forward to arrear demand. The Board desire that these instructions should also be adhered to strictly to ensure that complete addresses of the assessees are always available in the departmental records.