Representative assessee

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Sanjay K Pal

Proprietor

28 Points Posted on 30 July 2026

Mr. Ghosh passed away on 29-05-2024. After his demise, his wife Mrs. Ghosh was approved as his Representative Assessee/Legal Heir on the Income Tax e-Filing Portal and managed his income tax matters.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Ghosh passed away on 29-01-2026.

After the demise of both Ms. Gosh (only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gosh) the sole legal heir of both of them. Accordingly, she applied to register herself as the legal heir for both PANs.

Her request for Mrs. Ghosh's PAN has been successfully submitted and accepted.

However, when she tried to register myself as the legal heir of Mr. Ghosh the portal displays the following error:

"A legal heir request already exists for this PAN."

It appears that Mr. Ghosh's existing Representative Assessee/Legal Heir record is still active in the system. Since she is also deceased.

Ms. Ghosh is unable to submit a fresh legal heir request for my father's PAN. Due to this issue, she cannot access or manage my father's income tax matters or complete any pending compliance.

Please help me to solve this problem.

Replies (3)

Quick Summary

This discussion addresses a complex issue where a legal heir is unable to register for a deceased father's PAN because the previous representative assessee (the mother) is also deceased and her record remains active. The portal displays an error stating a request already exists. The suggested solutions involve approaching the Income Tax Officer (ITO) in person, raising a formal grievance with supporting death and legal heir certificates, or contacting the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer (JAO) directly to manually de-link the previous record and approve the new legal heir.

Dhirajlal Rambhia

SEO Sai Gr. Hosp.

121546 Points Posted on 30 July 2026

You need to approach your ITO in person to resolve the issue.

Aashok Kumar Sharma

Finance/Compliance Consultant

77990 Points Posted on 30 July 2026

Raise an IT Portal Grievance with both Death Certificates and Legal Heir Certificate requesting manual de-linking, or approach the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer (JAO) directly to clear the previous legal heir link and approve Ms. Ghosh.

Rushabh

Automation Expert

10728 Points Posted on 13 November 2026

The portal appears to be blocking the new request because Mr. Ghosh’s existing legal-heir/representative-assesse record remains active. Ms. Ghosh should raise a grievance on the e-Filing portal, requesting removal or deactivation of Mrs. Ghosh’s mapping and registration of Ms. Ghosh as legal heir for Mr. Ghosh’s PAN. Include both PANs, the error message and screenshots, and attach the death certificates of both parents and documents establishing Ms. Ghosh’s heirship. If the grievance does not resolve the issue, escalate it through the portal’s grievance mechanism with the acknowledgement number.

This issue sits within the deceased-taxpayer access and pending-compliance workflow. Manual follow-up across records and portal requests can be difficult; automation reduces repetitive work while professional judgment remains in control. Our platform offers 2,000+ AI agents and 650+ integrations across relevant tax, compliance and document workflows. For a walkthrough, message us on WhatsApp at https://wa.me/message/3HVOZ7HIY4ESC1.