How to reduce litigation - Some suggestions
YESTERDAY DDT carried a letter from CBEC seeking suggestions on reducing the litigation. DDT has some suggestions:
++ Provide an amnesty scheme to treat all the pending disputes at various levels as closed subject to certain conditions like giving an option to pay certain percentage of the demand.
++ Make the Committee of Chief Commissioners or the Commissioners to sit together and deliberate the issues during the review proceedings and record the minutes of such meeting while reviewing the orders. This should be mandatory. Appeal filed without the minutes of the Committee should be treated as null and void. The present practice of only "files" flying between the Chief Commissioners' offices is nothing but a mockery of the statutory provisions. The objective of reducing frivolous appeals by making the Committee to review the orders has been successfully defeated by merely two officers signing the files instead of sitting together and deliberating the issues.
++ When the Orders-in-original and orders of the Commissioner (Appeals) are to be reviewed by the Committee of Chief Commissioners and the Commissioners respectively, the orders passed by the CESTAT and the High Courts are reviewed only by the Commissioners. Does this mean the orders of CESTAT and High Court are of less importance than those of the Commissioner (Appeals) and the Commissioners? To improve the quality of review, the orders of High Court and the CESTAT should also be reviewed by a Committee.
++ The system of adjudication by the quasi judicial authority has become a farce. No officer who signed the Show Cause Notice is prepared to drop the same and even a child knows this. This system has lost the public faith and every assessee today has a feeling that instead of Show Cause Notice and the tamasha of personal hearing and adjudication, a direct order of demand would save them more time and money. It is suggested that adjudication should be a separate process. The person who issued the Show Cause Notice should not adjudicate the same.
++ Stop directions that a Show Cause Notice should be issued on CAG objection. Sometimes, the CAG even questions the policy like extending abatement on MRP assessments. It looks silly when a Show Cause Notice is issued by the officers demanding duty by denying the abatement given by the statute.