What the court decided
In an LHC ruling on FBR IRIS order service, the Lahore High Court said that placing an appellate decision inside a taxpayer’s account on the Federal Board of Revenue’s Inland Revenue Information System does not, by itself, meet the legal test for serving that decision under the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001. Justices Mirza Viqas Rauf and Anwaar Hussain sat as a two-judge bench. Justice Hussain wrote the opinion.
The dispute grew from three linked reference applications brought by Tahir Mehmood. They attacked Appellate Tribunal Inland Revenue decisions that had thrown out the related appeals as filed too late. The tribunal had treated the IRIS upload as enough to start the clock for filing further appeals.
Why the appeals were treated as late
In one matter, the taxpayer said pandemic restrictions and quarantine after travel abroad kept him from opening the portal. In the other two, the litigants said they first learned of the Commissioner (Appeals) outcomes when recovery notices arrived in April 2026—long after those outcomes had been recorded.
The revenue side argued that Rule 74 could not narrow the parent statute and that taxpayers should keep checking IRIS. The bench rejected both lines. It said the ordinance itself ties electronic delivery to the “prescribed manner,” so the rules that define that manner are not an optional gloss. It also refused to treat routine portal monitoring as a legal duty that cures defective service.
How the law draws the line
Section 218(1)(d) of the ordinance, the judgment explained, allows electronic service only when it follows the method set out in the rules. Rule 74 of the Income Tax Rules confines an electronic address to a fax number or an email address and insists on confirmation that the message was sent. IRIS, the court noted, is a web-based internal workflow tool used inside tax administration. Putting a file in a login account shows that someone can reach it there; it does not prove transmission to a fax or email destination in the way the rule demands. Accessibility, the judges stressed, is not the same as service.
Because the law does not treat an IRIS post as the event that starts limitation, that period cannot run from the upload date. On the Covid-era explanation, Justice Hussain said the department could not brush it aside: whether the tribunal’s conclusion was sound raised a question of law the high court could review.
The opinion described technology as a tool for applying statutes, not a freestanding source of power that can drop legal protections in the name of modern systems. The bench pointed to earlier views from the Peshawar and Islamabad high courts and the Delhi High Court, and to Articles 4 and 10A of the Constitution. It quashed the challenged tribunal orders and told the tribunal to hear the appeals again on their merits.
Aasan alfaaz mein
Lahore High Court ne kaha hai ke FBR ke IRIS portal par order daal dena legal notice nahi banata. Taxpayers ko email ya fax jese tareeqe se, qanoon ke mutabiq, order milna chahiye. Sirf portal dekhte rehna unki zimmedari nahi. Ab tribunal in appeals ko dobara, asal masle par, sunega.
