Delay in Filing Appeals - Supreme Court Lashes Income Tax Department - Order sent to FM
BY an order dated 15 01 2009, the Bombay High Court dismissed 11 appeals filed by the Income Tax Department, as the appeals were horribly delayed by 411 to 883 days. The High Court had observed,
In performance of their functions, public officers or public servants have the duty to act judiciously, fairly and expeditiously. An officer can hardly justify that a file would lie on his table for months or days together and he would not act on the said file just because he claims to be preoccupied.
It is neither expected nor it can be a normal conduct of a public servant or a litigant that they would keep the files unmoved, unprocessed for months together on their tables.
Some extent of public accountability and responsibility will have to be the basis for looking into such conduct. The consequences of such inordinate delay can be very fatal besides rendering remedy barred by law also leads to loss of public exchequer. This aspect of the matter introduces larger responsibility and consciousness in the conduct of the affairs of the revenue department. Certain amount of leverage or relaxation for departmental functions would be permissible, but this cannot be extended to the limits protecting negligence and irresponsibility.
Wherever there is higher public revenue, greater is the responsibility to act with utmost expeditiousness. It cannot justify the conduct that you sleep over and ignore your statutory rights for years and then take up the plea of public revenue. The Court can also not completely ignore the interest of the assessee who might have succeeded in the previous proceedings leading to the filing of the Appeal.
The only apparent cause for such serious delay is callous, irresponsible style of functioning in the Department. The principle of public accountability makes the concerned officers responsible and liable for such omission. (Please see )
Naturally, the Department is aggrieved by the order of the High Court and has appealed to the Supreme Court -after 694 days.
The Supreme Court was not exactly happy about the enormous delay and on 2nd July 2012 asked the department to explain the delay and also as to what steps the Department intends to take to remedy such situations, which have been recurring in matters involving huge amounts.
Last week, on 14.09.2012, the Supreme Court in an order, expressed its dissatisfaction with the affidavits filed and asked the ASG whether the Department intends to hold a departmental inquiry for the delay. The Supreme Court observed,
In large number of cases, we find a peculiar phenomenon. In cases, where huge revenue/demand from the Department is involved, invariably, there is inordinate delay in filing appeals before the High Court under Section 260A of the Income Tax Act, 1961, and in filing special leave petitions before this Court. We do not know the reason why such inordinate delays take place only in matters of stakes. This aspect needs to be looked into. This aspect has been brought to the notice of the learned Attorney General as well as the Ministry of Law in the past. This is one such case. Even in the past, this Court has raised a similar query. Moreover, once a matter is dismissed on the ground of delay, it has a ricocheting effect.
In the above circumstances, we direct the Registry to forward a copy of this Order to the Hon'ble Finance Minister and Hon'ble Law Minister for doing the needful at the departmental level so that such cases of revenue leakages do not recur.
The case was posted for the ASG's Statement on 17th September 2012.
On 17th September, the Registry reported that the Court's order was delivered to the Hon'ble Finance Minister and Law Minister vide Registry's forwarding letter 15th September, 2012 and acknowledgment of which is enclosed.
The Court has directed the petitions to be posted on 24.09.2012.
It is to be seen how the Government will evade the Court on 24th September! The Blame Game is on. It seems the CBDT is already armoured - they want to blame the Attorney General for the delay.
In similar matters, the CBEC seems to be much better. They invariably try to appeal within time; otherwise, they don't file an appeal at all.