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Relief for medical treatment: procedural hassles

Section 80DDB requires certificate of the specialist as may be prescribed for the relevant illness but such specialist should have been working in a government hospital. That is the requirement of the section. It is also so prescribed in Form 10I under Rule 11DD.

However, when I applied for the relief on this Form, I was furnished with a different Form which requires that the treatment also should be taken in a Government hospital and that apart from the certification of a specialist, such certificate should be counter-signed by the head of the Government hospital.

Can the Income-tax Department at Chennai impose further conditions for relief under Sec. 80DDB?

Form 10I under Rule 11DD has since been substituted with effect from April 1, 2003. It is seen from the copies of the certificates enclosed by the reader that he has furnished a certificate, which has been superseded. The main part of the present Form requires the certificate to be signed by a specialist doctor in the government hospital, while the fact that he is a specialist with post-graduate degree is what is required additionally below the main part of the certificate from the head of the government hospital.

The reader's inference that the certificate requires that the treatment should also have been taken in the government hospital is not correct. Neither the section nor the Rule nor the Form of the certificate stipulates such a requirement. What is certified is only the factum of disease or ailment for the medical treatment of which relief under Sec. 80DDB is given by law.

I am a retired colonel from the Army. I suffer both from acute hearing difficulties and a heart problem.

I am not eligible for any relief on account of my heart problem. But I was advised that I qualify for my treatment for hearing for which I filed a certificate from army ENT Specialist from Southern Command Hospital, Pune.

The authorities did not accept the same, but want the certificate to come from a government hospital other than military hospitals. I had addressed a letter to the Secretary, Central Board of Direct Taxes on August 5, 2005 seeking clarification and instruction to the authorities to alleviate the problems of ex-servicemen and also recognise military hospitals for certification, if it is not now permissible. I have not yet got a reply.

A military hospital cannot obviously be treated as a non-government hospital. If the certificate is in the Form prescribed under Form 10I and the illness is one which is listed in Rule 11DD, there is no reason why the certificate from the specialist from the military hospital could not be accepted.

If the assessing officer does not accept the same, the assessee should file an appeal and also seek administrative remedy as he has done. It is also advisable that the ex-servicemen's organisation should take up the matter through the Defence Ministry.

S. Rajaratnam

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