Section 287, Income-tax Act 2025: Rectification of mistake

What counts as a mistake apparent from the record?

A mistake so obvious that no argument is needed to see it. Section 287 lets an income-tax authority put right an error that is clear on the face of the record already before it: the return you filed, the documents on file, the order itself. If spotting the error takes a long chain of reasoning, fresh evidence, or a view on which reasonable people could differ, it is not a mistake apparent from the record and Section 287 cannot touch it.

The dividing line is this: an error is 'apparent' when only one answer is possible once you look, and it is not apparent when two views are genuinely open. A tax credit sitting in your Form 26AS that processing failed to allow is apparent. Whether a particular receipt is capital or revenue is a debatable question of law, so it is not, however wrong you think the order is. That kind of dispute belongs in an appeal, not a rectification.

Errors that typically qualify:

• Arithmetical and clerical mistakes: a total that does not add up, a figure carried across wrongly, an amount keyed twice.
• A tax credit denied in error: TDS or TCS that appears in your Form 26AS, or advance or self-assessment tax you paid, that the order did not give you.
• A relief or deduction claimed in the return but dropped in processing, such as a rebate you were plainly entitled to.
• Applying the wrong figure from the record: the wrong year's slab, an exemption limit misread, a plain factual slip.

The scope of rectification carries over unchanged from Section 154 of the 1961 Act; only the section number moved. Cross-checked against published copies of the enacted Act.†

What changed when Section 154 became Section 287?

The address, not the rule. Everything the old Section 154 did, the new Section 287 does, under the heading 'Rectification of mistake' in Chapter XVI of the Income-tax Act 2025. The power to correct a mistake apparent from the record, the four-year limit, the six-month deadline for the department to act on an application, and the safeguard that you must be heard before your tax is increased all carry across word for word in substance.

The sub-section numbers are new. The four-year time limit that was Section 154(7) is now Section 287(8). The six-month rule for disposing of an application, once Section 154(8), is Section 287(9). The notice-and-hearing safeguard before any enhancement, once Section 154(3), is Section 287(4). And where a rectification raises a demand, the notice of demand issues under Section 289 (the old Section 156), the same notice that follows a processing intimation on the Section 270 page.

The Act also speaks in 'tax years' instead of the old 'previous year' and 'assessment year'. The mechanics of rectification are unchanged, so anyone who knew Section 154 already knows Section 287.

The successor number (287), the sub-section renumbering and the Section 289 demand reference are cross-checked against published copies of the enacted Act.†

Who can rectify, and how it gets triggered

Any income-tax authority can rectify its own order or intimation. The Assessing Officer rectifies an assessment; the Centralised Processing Centre rectifies the intimation it generated when it processed your return; the Commissioner (Appeals) rectifies an appeal order. An authority can only correct its own record, not another authority's.

A rectification starts in one of three ways:

• On its own motion (suo motu): the authority notices the error and corrects it, without any request from you.
• On your application: you, a deductor or a tax collector point out the mistake and ask for it to be put right. This is the route most taxpayers use, filed on the e-filing portal.
• Brought to its notice: for the Commissioner (Appeals) or higher, the Assessing Officer can flag a mistake in the order for correction.

For a return processed by the Centralised Processing Centre, the rectification is filed with, and decided by, the CPC. Where jurisdiction has since moved to your Assessing Officer, the application goes to the officer instead.

Which orders and intimations can be rectified?

Almost any order or intimation the department passes, as long as the mistake is apparent from the record. The most common target by far is the return-processing intimation under Section 270(1), the old Section 143(1), which is where a wrongly denied tax credit or a dropped rebate first shows up as a demand.

Rectification reaches:

• The return-processing intimation (Section 270(1)), and a deemed intimation where the acknowledgement of the return itself stood in for one.
• A scrutiny assessment order, and an order giving effect to an appeal.
• TDS and TCS orders, and orders processing a TDS statement.
• Penalty and interest orders, where the error is on the face of the record.

You rectify the order that is currently in force. If an intimation has since been replaced by an assessment order, it is the later order that is rectified. Where a matter has been considered and decided in an appeal or revision, only the parts not touched by that decision can be rectified.

The four-year clock and the six-month deadline

Four years, counted from the end of the financial year in which the order was passed, not from the tax year the income belongs to. This catches people out. An intimation for tax year 2026-27 that the department issues in, say, September 2027 (financial year 2027-28) can be rectified until 31 March 2032: four years from the end of FY 2027-28. Miss that date and the mistake, however clear, can no longer be corrected under Section 287, outside the limited cases Section 288 lists separately, where the four years are reckoned afresh.

The clock has a second hand that runs in your favour. When you file a rectification application, Section 287(9) requires the authority to pass an order within six months from the end of the month in which it receives your application. It must either make the correction or refuse it in writing; it cannot simply sit on the request. If the six months pass with no order, keep the acknowledgement and follow up, because the delay does not extinguish your claim.

The four-year limit is Section 287(8) and the six-month rule Section 287(9), carried from Sections 154(7) and 154(8) of the 1961 Act. Cross-checked against published copies of the enacted Act.†

Can a rectification increase your tax?

Yes, and this is the safeguard to know. A rectification is not always in your favour: an authority can rectify a mistake that increases your assessment, reduces a refund already given, or otherwise raises what you owe. But it cannot do so silently. Section 287(4) requires the authority to give you notice of its intention and a reasonable opportunity to be heard before an amendment that goes against you takes effect.

Which way the money flows follows the correction. If the rectification reduces your liability, the Assessing Officer refunds what is due to you. If it increases your liability, a fresh notice of demand under Section 289 is served, and the usual 30 days to pay before recovery interest starts running applies. A rectification in your favour, by contrast, needs no hearing: the department can simply correct the record and pay you.

The notice-and-hearing safeguard is Section 287(4); the refund and demand consequences are Sections 287(6) and 287(7), the latter issuing the demand under Section 289. Cross-checked against published copies of the enacted Act.†

Rectification, revised return or appeal: which one fixes your problem?

Pick the route by asking whose mistake it is and what kind. Rectification is only for an error apparent on the record. If the problem is something you left out or a position you want to argue, rectification is the wrong tool, and using it only wastes the clock.

A revised return can do things a rectification cannot, because it replaces the whole return: it can add a fresh claim or report income you missed. A rectification only corrects what is already on the record. The revised-return and updated-return windows are set out on the Section 263 page.†

How to file a rectification online

Rectification is filed on the income-tax e-filing portal, and only after your return has been processed and an intimation exists. There is nothing to rectify until the department has passed an order. You file against the latest intimation for that tax year, and you can file more than once if a later intimation supersedes an earlier one.

On the portal, under Services and then Rectification, you choose the tax year and one of three request types:

• Reprocess the return: you are not changing anything you filed, you are asking the Centralised Processing Centre to run your return again. This is the fix when a TDS or challan credit has since appeared in your Form 26AS, or when the intimation carries an obvious computation error.
• Tax credit mismatch correction: you flag the specific TDS, TCS, advance-tax or self-assessment credits that were not given, so the record can be matched and allowed.
• Return data correction: you correct specific fields or schedules in the processed return. This is limited to apparent errors, and it is not a way to enter a claim you never made.

Choose reprocess-the-return when your figures were right and the department's were not; choose return-data-correction only for an apparent slip in what you filed. Neither can be used to make a fresh claim, which is a revised return.†

What a rectification cannot fix

The limits are where rectifications get rejected, so it pays to know them before you file. Section 287 corrects mistakes apparent from the record and nothing else.

• A fresh claim. A deduction or exemption you never claimed in the return is not a mistake apparent from the record, because nothing on the record shows it. It needs a revised return while that window is open.
• Income you left out. Adding omitted income is a revised or updated return, not a rectification.
• A debatable point of law. If two views are genuinely possible, the point is not 'apparent' and belongs in an appeal, even when you are confident you are right.
• Anything needing fresh evidence or an inquiry. If the error can only be shown by producing new documents or investigating facts, it is outside rectification.
• A matter already settled in appeal or revision. Once an appellate authority has decided a point, the Assessing Officer cannot reopen it through a rectification.

Clicking 'disagree' on an outstanding demand is not a rectification either. It flags your objection but changes nothing; the demand, and the interest on it, stand until a rectification, a revised return or an appeal actually corrects the record.

What to do about a demand you do not owe

Do not ignore it, and do not just mark it 'disagree' online. An unpaid intimation demand runs recovery interest at 1% a month and is set off against your next refund, so a ₹40,000 demand left for a year quietly costs about ₹4,800 in interest before any refund you were expecting is docked to clear it. The demand only goes away when the record is actually corrected.

Work out whose mistake it is first. If a credit you were owed was denied because your deductor filed late, chase the deductor to fix its TDS statement so the credit lands in your Form 26AS, then file a reprocess-the-return rectification: it is free, and it costs nothing to be wrong about. If the error is your own and the revised-return window is still open (31 March 2028 for tax year 2026-27), revise instead, because a revised return can add the claim or income a rectification cannot.

Mind both clocks. You have four years to rectify, counted from the end of the financial year the order was passed, but the six-month reply deadline only starts when you actually apply, so filing early is what gets the correction moving. If a rectification would increase your tax, the department must hear you first, so an unexpected enhancement notice is a chance to respond, not a settled bill.

A rectification carries no fee, which makes it the cheapest way to clear a demand that is genuinely the department's error. Save an appeal, with its own deadline and process, for a real dispute that rectification cannot settle.

Worked examples

Section 287 FAQs