Is Revenue really locked up in litigation?
SO, now it is out – the Department never had a success rate of more than 10% in the Supreme Court and 20% in the CESTAT, though there is a baffling 30% success rate in the High Courts. In the last four years, the Revenue lost more than 80% of its cases in the CESTAT and this means 80% of the so called revenue locked up in litigation is simply not there.
Then why do we bother about all this litigation? Why can't we simply close all these cases? Whatever you do, you are not going to get more than 8000 Crores out of the 86000 Crores. Maybe we can have another Kar Vivad Samadhan Scheme – ask the assesses to pay 10% of the duty demanded in cases pending before the various authorities and let us clean the system. Let adjudicating and appellate authorities be taught that their job is not to protect Revenue interests, but they have to be impartial and if they lean, it should be towards the assessees.