The author laments that while the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal is globally recognized as one of the best tax tribunals for its independence and competence, its reputation at home is under a cloud owing to the allegations of corruption. He makes a fervent plea that the Bench and the Bar has to play a positive role to maintain the dignity, sanctity and integrety of the Tribunal. He also outlines a few suggestions towards this end.

1. Courts and Tribunals are temples of justice. They are viewed with great sanctity and reverence. The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal is in existence for more than 67 years and is one of the oldest temples of justice in our country. Recent CBI raid on the residence of the sitting member of the ITAT has shaken the faith and confidence as well as sullied the reputation of this great institution. The Federation is of the opinion that there has to be speedy and impartial examination of the entire episode. If it is held to be a frame up, the member concerned should be reinstated with dignity and Bar should make sincere attempt that such incidents do not recur. On the other hand if it is found that the incident to be correct, the Bar and Bench will have to play a positive role to eradicate the cancer of corruption from the institution. There has to be national debate and like minded people and members must come together and try to find a workable solution for eradicating the seeds of corruption from the roots of the institution.

(more…)

The author laments that the Government is losing crores of rupees due to delay in filing of tax appeals by the tax department. He makes out a fervent case for accountability.

It has been observed that in last two years the department is filing most of the appeals after inordinate delay ranging from 50 days to 1200 days. The only reason is restructuring of tax administration and delay in getting approval from the Ministry of Law. The Tax Bench has already disposed about 3000 notices of motion and another 3,000 notices of motion may be pending for condonation of delay. If this trend continues it is very unfortunate that the courts precious time will be devoted only for hearing of notices of motion of tax department and court may not have the time to deal with important tax matters. This will increase the pendency before the High Court.

When pendency increases the questions will be raised in the Parliament that as the High Court is not able to dispose the tax matters for years hence they have to go ahead with the proposed National Tax Tribunal. One may have to consider: Why delay in filing of appeal in most of the cases? Is it really worth filing of belated appeals before the court? And who is accountable for delay?

If High Court dismisses 70% of notices of motions; i.e., 4200, apart from tax revenue, actual expenditure will be at least 4.20 crores on stamp papers and another 4.20 crores will be for drafting and representing etc. All this expenses are met out of the tax-payers money. Why tax-payers money should be spent on such an unproductive purpose. More than 16,000 appeals are filed every year before the Tribunal by the tax department. There is no delay. Why there is delay in filing appeals to the High Court?

This requires serious consideration of the Government.

We hope tax administration will take some remedial measures.

Dr. K. SHIVARAM
Editor-in-Chief AIFTP