Does Revenue Departments fraudulently tinker with documents?
IT may be shocking, but they do – not on a rare occasion but with routine flagrant regularity.
Backdating is a common fraud perpetuated by officers at all levels. When an officer is transferred, you can see him/her joining at the new place and coming back to sign orders with back dates which should have been signed when he/she was holding the post. This happens because they had already sent reports (wrong, fraud) to their bosses that these orders have already been passed when they were not written. If you look at the date of the order and the date of receipt of the order by the assessee, you will notice that often there is a difference of about three months. It doesn't take much of intelligence to realise that it really does not take three months for an order to reach an assessee. The fact is the order is backdated.
There are some honest officers who refuse to backdate their orders. There was one such officer who signed the order after being relieved from her post, but with no back date. The Department took the matter in appeal to the CESTAT arguing that she could not have passed the order after relinquishing her post. (Please see 2006-TIOL-95-CESTAT-BANG). Had she signed it with a back date as all others do, there would have been absolutely no problem. Who suffers for these acts? The Assessee of course!
Even Show Cause Notices are issued with back dates and the assessees are forced to acknowledge them with back dates – to get over the problem of limitation. An officer who is capable of persuading the assessee to accept a Show Cause Notice with a back date is considered to be a meritorious officer and will even be recommended for Presidential award.
An appeal is to be filed in the High Court within six months from the date of receipt of the Tribunal's order. This is often not done. But appeals are filed regularly. How? The receipt date is tinkered with. The Tribunal's order is shown to have been received just five months before filing the appeal in the High Court.
Reports to higher officers on pendency and arrears are routinely fabricated. Number of orders passed in a month is doctored to show a higher performance and pending matters are stuffed under the carpet – all with a confident arrogance that they will never be caught and if caught, there is absolutely no punishment – for it is done by everybody!
Even in Service Tax cases, assessees are threatened with arrest and illegal ‘on the spot' recovery is made. Recording of statements, especially by the super sleuth agencies are outright fraud, where confession is obtained by torture and threat.
When delayed refunds are made, assessees are forced to abdicate their claim for interest – some officers even obtain undertakings from the assessees that they will not claim interest.
Tomorrow we will be carrying a case wherein an Income Tax return was filed on 15.5.2000 and the Department claimed that it issued a notice on 16.5.2000 – the very next day. The Tribunal noticed that “The filing of return on a Receipt counter on one day and the issuance of notice u/s.143(2) on the very next day would mean that all the steps from the receipt of return on the Receipt counter till the issuance of notice got completed within one day's time.”
Such steps would include
1. the receipt of return on the Receipt counter of the department;
2. the Receipt clerk, after entering the necessary particulars in the relevant register, handing over the same to the office of the concerned Assessing Officer;
3. the office of the AO receiving it from the receipt clerk;
4. placing of such return before the AO;
5. the AO pursuing the return and all the accompanying documents;
6. jotting down the points on which the explanation of the assessee is required ;
7. finalizing such points and accordingly sending the notice.
8. It is vital to note that it is a case of block assessment and the return was filed pursuant to the search action. It is but natural that before issuance of notice u/s.143(2) the Assessing Officer will take note of Appraisal Report of search and other relevant documents vis-à-vis the particulars disclosed in the return.
ITAT observed, “It is difficult, if not impossible, to issue notice u/s.143(2) on the very next day of the filing of the block return”.
Strangely the Department did not show the same speed for the second notice. The Tribunal observed, “It is not understandable as to how the swiftness shown by the Assessing Officer in issuing notice u/s.143(2) on the very next day from the filing of the return on 16.5.2000 came to halt all of a sudden and it was only after a time gap of more than one and half years that the so called second notice was issued on 24.12.2001”