Budget 2022: No Appeal when an Identical Question of Law is Pending before Jurisdictional High Court or Supreme Court [Read Finance Bill]

Budget 2022 - Jurisdictional High Court - Supreme Court - Litigation Management - Identical Question of Law - Taxscan

With a view to reduce the litigation and the cost, the Finance Minister has proposed a mechanism as per which, when in an appeal by revenue an identical question of law is pending before jurisdictional High Court or Supreme Court, the assessee can submit an application to the Revenue requesting not to file appeal.

Section 158AA of the Act provides that where the Commissioner or Principal Commissioner is of the opinion that any question of law arising in the case of an assessee (relevant case) is identical with a question of law arising in his case for another assessment year (other case) which is pending in appeal before the Supreme Court against an order of High Court which was in favour of assessee, he may direct the Assessing Officer to make an application to the Appellate Tribunal stating that an appeal on the question of law in the relevant case may be filed when the decision on the question of law becomes final in the other case, subject to the acceptance of the same by the assessee.

If such a principle could be applied to cases where a question of law is common and where a decision of the jurisdictional High Court, on the same question of law is available, the filing of appeal in such cases can be avoided to reduce the amount of litigation.

Therefore, to provide a procedure when an appeal by revenue is pending on anidentical question of law, the Finance Bill, 2022 proposed to insert a new section 158AB in the Act, toprovide that where the collegium is of the opinion that any question of law arising inthe case of an assessee for any assessment year (“relevant case”) is identical with aquestion of law already raised in his case or in the case of any other assessee for anassessment year, which is pending before the jurisdictional High Court under section260A or the Supreme Court in an appeal under section 261 or in a special leavepetition under article 136 of the Constitution, against the order of the Appellate Tribunalor the jurisdictional High Court, as the case may be, in favour of such assessee (“othercase”), it may, decide and intimate the Commissioner or Principal Commissioner notto file any appeal, at this stage, to the Appellate Tribunal under sub-section(2) of section 253 or to the High Court under sub-section (2) of section 260A againstthe order of the Commissioner (appeals) or the Appellate Tribunal, as the case maybe.

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