Income Tax Act, 1961 – s.80DD (as amended) – Deduction in respect of maintenance including medical treatment of a dependent who is a person with disability – As per amendment to s.80DD, on attaining the age of 60 years or more by an individual subscriber or a member of an HUF, the payment or deposit to the scheme envisaged u/s.80DD can be discontinued and the monetary benefit which would have accumulated can be made use of – Amendment, if can be given retrospective effect:
Held: Amendment to s.80DD cannot be given retrospective effect – Plea that the amendment to s.80DD be applied retrospectively to policies which were taken prior to 2014 so that the benefit of the amendment is given to those subscribers also, cannot be accepted – Plea for retrospective operation of the amendment not in the interest of the disabled persons – Whole object of Jeevan Adhar Policy is to benefit disabled persons by making provision by the subscriber post his demise – Concern and apprehension of a caregiver or subscriber of a policy for a disabled family member or other person for whose benefit the policy is taken after the demise of the caregiver is of utmost significance – It is only with that object that the caregiver or a subscriber would take such a policy so that he would not leave a disabled person in the lurch on his demise – Insurance contract is in a sense, a commercial contract, having certain terms and conditions and the sub-stratum of the contract cannot be removed by giving a retrospective operation to the amendment – Benefit u/s.80DD would have been availed by the subscribers at the time when they have subscribed to the policy. [Paras 7, 8]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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