206. Persons deducting tax to furnish prescribed returns.

(1) The prescribed person in the case of every office of Government, the principal officer in the case of every company, the prescribed person in the case of every local authority or other public body or association, every private employer and every other person responsible for deducting tax under the foregoing provisions of this Chapter shall, within the prescribed time after the end of each financial year, prepare and deliver or cause to be delivered to the prescribed income-tax authority, such returns in such form and verified in such manner and setting forth such particulars as may be prescribed.

(2) Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force, a return filed on a floppy, diskette, magnetic cartridge tape, CD-ROM or any other computer readable media as may be specified by the Board (hereinafter referred to as the computer media) shall be deemed to be a return for the purposes of this section and the rules made thereunder and shall be admissible in any proceedings thereunder, without further proof of production of the original, as evidence of any contents of the original or of any fact stated therein.

(3) A return filed under sub-section (2) shall fulfil the following conditions, namely:--

(a) while receiving returns on computer media, necessary checks by scanning the documents filed on computer media will be carried out and the media will be duly authenticated by the Assessing Officer ; and

(b) the Assessing Officer shall also take due care to preserve the computer media by duplicating, transferring, mastering or storage without loss of data.