CESTAT needs better facilities
AFTER all it doesn't cost much - rather it costs only a fraction of the money that you spend on the officers who clog the CESTAT with litigation. Even after thirty years, CESTAT does not have its own buildings. The judges sit in rooms that are smaller than the ones that Assistant Commissioners in the field have - Many of the rooms do not have attached toilets. The Technical Members are former Commissioners or Chief Commissioners in the Department. As bosses in the department they enjoy tremendous powers and privileges and an army of subordinates to do all their work. When they come to the Tribunal, they find more of work and absolutely no facilities. Even Additional Commissioners in the department have Superintendents and Inspectors to write their orders - judges have no such privilege.
The least the Government can do is providing a little better infrastructure - we need better court rooms. Even small courts have a horseshoe type table where lawyers can keep their books and browse their appeal books, but the court rooms in the CESTAT are like class rooms. We need better rooms for the bar, we need better libraries, we need a massive computerisation and better use of technology.
And why should the CESTAT be under the Revenue Department of the Finance Ministry?
The website of the Finance Ministry [http://dor.gov.in/org setup] informs the world that CESTAT is a subordinate/attached office of the Revenue Department. Strange that you establish a high-powered Tribunal with a High Court judge at its head and make it a subordinate office of the Revenue Department which is one of the litigants in every case before the Tribunal. There were strong protests and demands to attach the Tribunal to the Law Ministry and in initial days it was told that after the Revenue Department completes the formalities of initial setting up, the Tribunal would be transferred to the Law Ministry. We have waited for 31 years and so far nothing has happened.