New
Delhi:
The Supreme Court on Friday took serious exception to the failure of finance
department officials in finalising a proposal to streamline the process of
filing appeals involving revenue and indirect taxation matters and warned it
will not hesitate to initiate contempt against them and take coercive action.
A
bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and MR Shah took note of repeated adjournments
sought in an appeal against the order of the Customs Excise and Service Tax
Appellate Tribunal filed with a delay of 536 days.
The
top court sought the presence of Solicitor General to which it was told that he
was arguing the matter in some other court.
The
bench said, “This is shocking. This court passed the order on February 15 on
the proposal which was submitted by the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and
since then adjournment has been sought on one pretext or another. If something
concrete does not come out by the next date of hearing, this court will not
hesitate to initiate contempt against concerned officials and take coercive
action”.
The
bench told Additional Solicitor General Balbir Singh that it is for the benefit
of the department that this proposal was sought to be prepared but instead
officials do not seem to understand.
“There
were several appeals filed even with delays of over 10 years but we had
condoned the delay depending on the case but this could not be a practice”, it
said.
On
February 15, Mehta placed a note before the bench after deliberation with
senior union government officials including the finance secretary and law
secretary and the chairpersons of the Central Board of Direct Taxes and Central
Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs.
In
the note it was submitted that both Boards have issued instructions outlining
the timelines for different levels for processing of a case for filing an
Special Leave Petition to ensure that appeal is filed within the stipulated
time frame of 90 days.
The
proposal said that there should be a Committee in each Board (CBDT and CBIC)
consisting of-Member (Judicial)-chairman, Director General of the Directorate
in-charge for litigation management-convener, Commissioner (Judicial), Legal
advisor for department of legal affairs, and Central Government Standing
Counsel.
It
said that the Committees of the both Boards should meet every week at a fixed
time (say, every Tuesday at 5 pm) one after another and take the final decision
on whether to file an SLP or not and only in exceptional cases of disagreement,
matter could be processed on file between Department of Revenue and Department
of Legal Affairs and even SG/ASG.
In
the meetings the Finance Secretary had said that there are around 20-22 SLPs
being filed between both the Boards every week and the Committee should be able
to take quick decisions cutting down movement of files through various levels.
The
Law Secretary had also pointed out that it is movement of files within various
levels in the departments that consumes most of the time and had suggested that
the cases should be monitored through software with alert mechanisms and time
stamps so that delays are avoided.
The
top court had taken the proposal on record and suggested the need to
incorporate technological innovations in the process of monitoring litigation
involving the revenue arm of the union government.
It
had said that in order to facilitate further deliberations by the authorities
of the Union government, it is posting the matter for further hearing on March
15, and sought a consolidated proposal also incorporating technological
modalities to be placed before the Court on the next date of listing.
On
February 10, the top court had said that the union government, in the
Department of Revenue must find an answer to this state of affairs by ensuring
that matters which are required to be litigated are litigated with all
necessary dispatch and matters not worthy of being pursued are set to rest.
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