Warning the defaulters of penal consequences, the Income Tax Department today asked assesses, who pay taxes on the basis of self-assessment, to clear their dues by March 31.

The Revenue Department said 73,388 people have defaulted on payments of self-assessment tax aggregating to Rs 3,859 crore.

"Filing a return without paying the admitted amount of tax that is payable will render such taxpayer an 'assessee in default' under the provisions of the I-T Act. Such taxpayers who default in payment of self-assessment tax may invite penal consequences," the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

"Income-tax Department urges all taxpayers who have filed their returns in the current financial year and have defaulted on payment of self-assessment tax, to immediately come forward and pay the due taxes before March 31, 2013," it said.

It further said that in future the tax arrears, in case of self assessment, should be cleared along with the filing of return.

The revenue department is plugging each and every source of revenue to achieve the Rs 5.65 lakh crore mop up target under the direct taxes category for this fiscal, which will end on March 31.

To check tax evasion, the government has already sent 35,000 notices to tax payers who are not filing returns and a similar number of notices are in process of being issued.