A two-judge bench of the Bombay High Court has accused the Income Tax Department for its careless approach in contesting litigations at the higher courts and consequently losing cases consistently.
The Court in strong observations noted that the accumulating litigation losses ”could be then termed as a deliberate or intentional act.”
As per a recent report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the IT Department has a very poor record at both the High Court and Supreme Court level with a success rate of 15 per cent and 26 per cent at the former and latter levels. These statistics were part of.
A bench of Justices S C Dharmadhikari and B P Colabawalla was hearing a case where the department sought the revival of an earlier rejected order on the grounds that the appellate authority’s decision was premised on a legal error. The High Court had rejected the earlier department appeal on grounds of procedural errors by the department.
“On numerous occasions, this Court has brought to the notice of the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, Government of India through the Commissionerates that the Revenue has been selective in its approach. It picks either the assessee or the assessment years pertaining to that assessee for challenging the orders in relation to them, before the higher forums. This results in revenue leakage or perpetuation of wrongs affecting adversely the collection of revenue. The public at large is at a loss to understand as to why the Department/Revenue consistently loses the battle in the higher Courts. This could be then termed as a deliberate or intentional act.”
While the High Court allowed the hearing on the rejected appeal, it also called for the department to initiate disciplinary action against the errant officers.
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