Judges want to be exempted from the rigours of the Right to Information Act (“RTI”) even for their non-judicial activities. And rightly so because the information that one can dig up on the honourables can be quite embarrassing to them.

CNN-IBN reported that it put in an RTI application which threw up interesting details of how judges extended their holidays, often for personal purposes, at Government expense.

It reported that Balakrishnan, soon after taking over as Chief Justice, was bitten by the travel bug. He made at least seven trips abroad in 2007 traveling First Class with his wife with the air fare alone costing over a whopping Rs 39 lakh.

Apparently, during his 11-day trip to Pretoria, South Africa in August 2007, the Chief Justice took the following route – Delhi, Dubai, Johannesburg, Nelspruit, Capetown, Johannesburg, Victoria Falls, where the judge finally didn’t go and returned via Dubai to Delhi.

The air fare alone cost Rs 5.70 lakh and did not include the stay, TA, DA or Entertainment Allowance. Entertainment Allowance itself was over Rs 80,000.

Predictably, Union Law Minister HR Bhardwaj reacted in a belligerent fashion “They also need comfort; they also need to go out. Why they should be deprived of it.” He was also sympathetic of the judges’ need to be accompanied by wives though government rules that say judges cannot be accompanied by wives on work tours. “How can you deprive the wife? You are a woman. You should understand,” Bhardwaj is reported as having lashed out at the CNN-IBN correspondent.

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The author is severely critical of the Government for the failure of the Settlement Commission to achieve its desired objects. He blames bad administration, lack of transparency in the process of appointment and failure of the Government to appoint Members from the profession as the root causes of the problem. He has identified a few critical areas and makes a fervent plea for reform.

One can say that Income-tax Act was the first fiscal law that had an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanism inasmuch as Income Tax Settlement Commission (ITSC) existed since 1976 on the statute book. Wanchoo Committee had suggested formation of a Permanent Settlement Tribunal in its report instead of repetitive disclosure schemes in following words: “this, does not mean that the door for compromise with an errant tax-payer should for ever remain closed. In the administration of fiscal laws, whose primary objective is to raise revenue, there has to be room for compromise and settlement.”

By Finance Act, 2007 far reaching changes have been made to provisions for settlement of tax cases and with effect from 1-4-2008 one can say that ITSC is on statute book only for name sake. Only a few applications have been filed under the new provisions – though one can say that approximately only 400 applications being filed annually even under the old provisions showed that there was something seriously wrong with the provisions and its implementation. It cannot be denied that what Wanchoo Committee said in 1976 is true even today, rather type of dispute between the department and the assessee has undergone a sea change and it is the experience of the bar that there is need for a proper alternative dispute resolution forum. For a long time, it has been suggestion of AIFTP that there has to be a mechanism for resolution of tax disputes otherwise than by way of litigation. Like in commercial transactions, where conciliation proceedings are resorted to instead of litigation, similarly for tax disputes there has to be an alternative dispute resolution mechanism.

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