Indirect Tax Internship Scheme In Central Board Of Indirect Taxes And Customs (CBIC)(ITISCBIC)

Overview

About ITISCBIC

The Directorate of Legal Affairs is the arm of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs that defends customs, central excise, service tax and GST matters in the Supreme Court, and its own quarterly report counts 2,693 cases admitted and pending there as on 30.06.2026. The Indirect Tax Internship Scheme puts a small group of law students and law graduates inside that work for a few months in Delhi. The part that catches applicants out is that the terms are re-issued as a fresh notice tied to a financial year, and the last one traceable moved both the money and the number of seats.

This is litigation support inside a revenue department, not a policy or research placement. The Directorate of Legal Affairs was set up in June 2002 and works as the nodal agency monitoring the legal and judicial work of CBIC and its field formations, including party appeals filed in the Supreme Court, per the Directorate's own site. Its quarterly list of admitted and pending Supreme Court matters stood at 2,693 cases as on 30.06.2026, split 1,387 departmental appeals and 1,306 party appeals, in the quarterly report issued by the Directorate. An intern is reading files out of that pile rather than sitting in on drafting exercises.

Two conditions decide who can realistically take it. The engagement is full time, physically attended, and runs in Delhi, and an intern is not expected to pursue any other course or work for its duration, per the FY 2025-26 notice. So it fits a candidate with a clean block in the academic calendar who is already in Delhi or can move there for it, and it does not fit anyone planning to run it alongside classes or a law firm stint. Interns are placed across different sections of the legal establishment, and the notice gives no route to request a section.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

Each notice opens and shuts a single window for one financial year, and it is a short one.

The pattern to plan around is the start date rather than the closing date. Both notices set the internship to begin at the top of a quarter, and each closed applications about a month to six weeks before that, which is why the FY 2025-26 window ran through February for an April start while the FY 2023-24 window ran into May for a July start. No notice later than the FY 2025-26 one is traceable on the Directorate's Notice Board or in a search of its site, so anyone applying now is waiting on a fresh notice rather than a rolling form.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The standing shape of the eligibility bar is a law degree in progress or recently finished, but the year of study it accepts has narrowed. The FY 2023-24 notice opened it to law students pursuing a 3-year LLB or a 5-year integrated LLB, without naming a year. The FY 2025-26 notice restricted the student category to those in the 2nd year of the 3-year LLB or the 4th year of the 5-year integrated course, and it dated the graduate window instead of leaving it open, saying the final exam passed should not be before the year 2023.

Candidates who have appeared in the final year or semester examination on the cutoff date apply in the graduate category, and they carry a condition into joining rather than into the application: proof of having passed the course has to be produced when they report, per the FY 2025-26 notice. Eligibility itself is read as on the last date of application, which the FY 2023-24 notice pinned to 19.05.2023 in that cycle.

Nothing in either notice measures family income, and neither sets out a category-wise reserved share. The application proforma records a category field alongside the academic tables, and the notice attaches no separate bar or relaxation to it.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

The one bar the scheme listing carries is the joining default, and its length changed between cycles. Under the FY 2023-24 notice a selected candidate who failed to join on the date of joining could be debarred for six months; under the FY 2025-26 notice the same default debars the candidate for that entire financial year.

Two more disqualifications sit further in, and both cost the certificate rather than the seat. An intern who walks out without giving fifteen days of prior written notice to the Directorate is not awarded a certificate, and an intern who leaves before completing the minimum period gets nothing on paper either, per the same notice.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Nobody re-applies to stay on. What the notice allows is a tenure already under way being stretched, and it caps how far. A law student taken for one to two months can be extended to a maximum total of three months, and a law graduate taken for up to six months can be extended to a maximum total of one year, in both cases by the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner, Directorate of Legal Affairs, on mutual agreement, per the FY 2025-26 notice. Leave beyond the permitted two days a month, where it is granted, extends the tenure by exactly the days taken, so the end date moves rather than the attendance requirement bending.

What you get

Award & benefits

Both stipends went up between the two traceable cycles while the seat count came down, which is why figures quoted around this scheme disagree.

Payment is conditional and it is monthly, not daily. The FY 2025-26 notice makes the stipend payable on satisfactory completion of the internship, and where an intern discontinues, it is released for the completed month and not for part days. The certificate has its own floor, separate from the money: a law student needs a minimum of one month and a law graduate a minimum of three months before one is issued at all.

• The student interns will receive a stipend of ₹ 5,000/- per month for satisfactory conduct of the internship.
• The graduate interns will receive a stipend of ₹ 15,000/- per month for satisfactory conduct of the internship.
• On satisfactory completion of the internship, a Certificate of Internship shall be awarded.
• Certificate of Internship would be given to only such law student interns who complete a minimum of one month and to such law graduates who complete a minimum three months period of internship.
• Interns not completing such a minimum period would not be awarded any certificate.

What to prepare

Documents required

Proof of eligibility travels with the application, not after selection. The FY 2025-26 notice asks for an identity card, result sheet, mark sheet or provisional degree to be presented with the form, and it expects a photograph on the proforma itself.

The proforma is where the two cycles diverge most. The FY 2023-24 form asked for the period of internship required, personal details, and marks tables for school, graduation and each LLB year or semester. The FY 2025-26 form dropped the requested period and added three blocks that read like a shortlisting aid: trainings or projects attended after the degree, academic and other achievements above the plus two level, and two named references from an institute or the legal fraternity with their contact details. An applicant assembling papers for the next round should line up two referees before the form is opened, not after.

Step by step

How to apply

There is no portal and no application fee in either notice. The candidate fills the proforma attached to that year's notice and emails it to dlasmc-cbic@gov.in on or before the last date printed on it, per the FY 2025-26 notice, which required applications strictly in the attached form. The 2023 cycle used the same single email route, so the mechanism has held across notices even as the terms moved.

After the Email Goes Out

Nothing acknowledges the application. The notice states that selected candidates shall be informed by email and that no further communication shall be made with the rest of the candidates, so silence is the department's stated outcome for an unsuccessful applicant rather than a delay to chase. There is no status page to refresh and no shortlist published against a roll number. What is worth watching instead is the Directorate's own Notice Board, which still lists the 2023 internship notice by name, since a fresh cycle begins with a notice and its attached form rather than with a form sitting open on a portal.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Selection runs on the paper an applicant sends in, with one live step added in the latest cycle. The FY 2025-26 notice records that the Selection Committee may require applicants to interact through a video call before candidates are selected. That is the only assessment named anywhere in it: there is no written test, no interview panel in Delhi, and no merit list.

The stated tie-breaker also changed. The FY 2023-24 notice said preference shall be given to students and graduates of reputed institutions, a clause the myScheme listing still carries. The FY 2025-26 notice drops that sentence and instead pulls achievements and references into the form, which shifts what an applicant can do about their odds, from the name of the college towards what the form can show.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

Confidentiality is the condition with teeth. An intern is required to keep all documents, reports and any other information received during the internship confidential, must not reveal anything relating to the department, its work or its policies to any person or organisation, and has to furnish an undertaking of no conflict of interest in taking the internship, per the FY 2025-26 notice. That undertaking matters for a law student who also assists a practice on the other side of indirect tax matters.

Attendance is the second. Leave is capped at two days a month and, under the FY 2025-26 notice, unused days are not carried forward, while 90% attendance is mandatory for the internship to count as satisfactorily completed. Clause (x) of the FY 2025-26 terms then closes off the obvious hope, in one line: the internship is neither a job nor an assurance of a job in the Department.

Get help

Contact

The FY 2025-26 notice is issued on Directorate of Legal Affairs letterhead at V.K. Krishna Menon Bhawan, 9 Bhagwan Das Road, New Delhi 110001, telefax 011-23381825, and its file number is routed through the Special Monitoring Cell. The Directorate of Legal Affairs itself is at the 4th and 5th floors, Rajendra Bhawan, 210 Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, New Delhi 110002, reachable at dla-rev@nic.in, per its contact page.

One address is worth checking before sending anything. The application email printed on the notice is dlasmc-cbic@gov.in, while the Directorate's contact page lists the Special Monitoring Cell as dlasmc-cbic@igov.in. Use the address printed on the notice for the cycle being applied to, and treat the contact page as the fallback.

Source

Official links

Frequently asked questions

From the official scheme FAQ (myScheme)

Read this

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Scheme details are compiled from myScheme, the Government of India’s official scheme-discovery platform, and are reproduced without alteration. Amounts, deadlines and eligibility change between cycles, so always confirm on the official links above before applying. Expertie does not process applications or charge fees.

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