Like everyone’s saying here, it does seem a bit random. However, I don’t think it is. It is pseudo-random in the sense that there are many factors such as your jurisdiction, your current address, your bank, whether refund or not, amount of refund etc. All put together, it seems random to us.
Just wait until 1 month after the end of the filing season and then file a grievance complaint. That’s how I have kept it for myself. However, it has never gone that far. It’s been usually processed within a month of filing. Usually within a week. So, it’s nothing to be too worried about.
If you think this is bad, wait until you get hit with some BS demand for some BS issue. I have a demand all the way back from 2013 because of some data issues at their end which they still haven’t resolved despite visiting the AO and involving multiple CA’s and use as an excuse to delay refunds every year
I have about 10 people who have got demand from 2009-2015 period . They had paid advance tax, claimed credit and the dept didnt take the challan credit. Now they want documents to prove its paid, assessee doesnt have such old challan. But their own system shows the advance tax challan in 26AS.
Now after sending them screenshot and 26as pdf to contest it, they are yet to remove the demand and continue to stop refunds or deduct money from refunds each year at whim, cause they have asked AO’s opinion on it. And AO’s time limit to reply is 6 months past lmao.
Situation is really bad, dept can do things as late as they want, but if the Assessee is 1 day late, they’re charged 5000 as penalty. Sad state of affairs.
Processing happens based on their internal software and priorities. Greviance wont fasttrack it. Dont waste your time.
They’re doing a few refunds at every month end. Since the interest on refund will be the same any time during the month. So they save on paying during the month and pay during 1st week of next month, interest calulated on last day of previous month as processed then. (based on current trend)
Generally it will get processed with some random delay.
Usually mine (ITR3) was getting processed within a month for last few years. This time it took slightly more than 2 months. Just got processed this week, and this time it went straight from e verified to processed status. No ‘processing’ step in between.
Most of the times, all these Indian GOV Websites are down!