Case Status Information System – CBEC should do something
IN the Mahavir case, referred to above, the P&H High Court was told that the government has accepted the judgement of the Tribunal as there was no appeal filed, while the fact was that the appeal was pending in the Karnataka High Court. It was not the mistake of the Counsel, for he has no means to know whether an appeal had been filed or not – such information is not easily shared.
Under our strange laws, to file an appeal in the Tribunal against an order passed by a Commissioner or Commissioner (Appeals), you need the approval of a committee of two Commissioners or two Chief Commissioners. But to file an appeal in the High Court against an order passed by two or three Members of the Tribunal (who are all higher than your Chief Commissioners), you don't need anybody's approval.
A Commissioner can file an appeal in the High Court against the decision of the Larger Bench of the Tribunal headed by a former Chief Justice of a High Court, while he cannot take that decision against an order passed by his less exalted colleague the Commissioner (Appeals).
How will a Commissioner in Haryana know whether a Commissioner in Salem has filed an appeal in some High Court? Every day we get at least three calls from harried departmental officers wanting to know the latest status on some Tribunal, High Court or even Supreme Court decision. Just yesterday we had a call from an officer wanting to know whether the Government has accepted the Supreme Court decision is dismissing the appeal in the Indian Shipowners case. He told me, “since you are not sure, I will issue a demand from 1.1.2005!”
The CBEC should maintain a database for every decision of the Tribunal and High Court – whether the decision has been accepted by the Hon'ble Commissioner or whether appeal has been filed. The Board should maintain this data for Supreme Court also – whether any review petition has been filed.
If the Board cannot do this job, TIOL is ready to undertake this job free of charge for CBEC – let all Commissioners inform us the status of the decisions and we will carry them in our site and update the data frequently so that the present status of any case is available for everybody.
Consistency and discipline are of far greater importance than the winning or losing of court proceedings – Supreme Court in Paper Products -