In the Commissioner of Service Tax, Pune v. M/s Vansum Industries, the Bombay High Court made some serious criticism over the lapses and attitude of the Tax officials in following up the cases.
The Court opined that the Officials are playing blame-game by blaming the advocates for not updating the case status with them and for not rendering necessary legal advises.
The back ground facts of the case are that the Registry kept a time-barred appeal which was filed on 2014 without an application for delay condonation. Later, the appeal was retrieved through a Notice of Motion which was beyond the statutory period, i.e, after five months of lodging the appeal. The commissioner of service Tax approached the High Court seeking time to remove the office objections. The Bench found that once the Appeals were entertained by condoning the delay, there was enough time to remove the office objections.
Rejecting the petition, the bench noted that the Officials had observed that the Commissioner and his officials are playing a blame game. “To cover up their lapses and deficiencies, they turned around and blamed their Advocates. They are of the opinion that their Advocates ought to inform them and at every stage of the matter, particularly as to which office objections have to be complied with or are to be removed. If no such communication is made by the Advocates, then the Commissioner feels that he and his officers are not at fault. We are sorry to say that this is not what was expected from the Commissioner of Service Tax. If the officers are unaware of legal procedures, then, they have to be in touch with their Advocates and periodically. They cannot expect that the Advocate himself comes to their office and apprise them as to what further has to be done after the filing of an Appeal. Earliest this impression is removed from their mind as it is the duty of the officers to follow up the case, then, the better it would be for our system. This blame game must be immediately stopped. We are expecting that this game will not be played further and as assured by Mr. Bangur in the light of a circular which is issued.
“There is a Legal Coordination Cell, Pune Zone and it would hereafter take care in terms of its Office Order dated 1012017 and which has been circulated to all concerned. We would expect better coordination which was completely lacking earlier. We would also appreciate that the Revenue officials communicate with their Advocates periodically or rather regularly apprise themselves of the stages in which their Appeals have to go through.”
Read the full text of the order below.
