20 February 2009
No you cannot claim that expenditure. It will be disallowed. You know very well in advance that sunday is a holiday. Further when you make the cheque payment it will take 2days by normal clearing. Therefore you cannot get exception. If suddenly indefinite strike was there, then on those days you can pay and get shelter under this clause. Further now banks are having so much advanced system. In icici you can directly transfer to some other account of any branch of other banks who are participating in their group. The AO can easily catch you and disallow this.
20 February 2009
"... where the payment was required to be made on a day on which the banks were closed either on account of holiday or strike"
From the above Rule position, it is clear that unless you could establish sufficient justification to make payment on holiday, it is difficult to get the expenditure allowed in assessment