Overreach of Revenue - Bank account attachment day before Tribunal hearing
SOMETIMES our Revenue officers behave more like highway robbers than modern day revenue collectors.
The law that a stay granted by the Tribunal will be automatically vacated after one year,even if the assessee is not at all responsible for the Tribunal's delay in disposing of the appeal,is causing havoc.Even though the Supreme Court has ruled that Tribunal has the power to extend stay beyond one year,of late some High Courts have held that the Tribunal has no such power.
In a recent case,the Revenue struck a day before the Tribunal was to hear the extension of Stay application by attaching the bank account of the assessee and recovering part of the demand.The Tribunal granted extension of Stay but Revenue refused to refund the amount recovered from the bank.The hapless assessee approached the High Court.The High Court observed that this is tantamount to overreaching the process of law which cannot be approved by the Court.
Are the Revenue officers expected to collect revenue in this manner?
If the Congress loses the 2014 elections,our Revenue officers can take credit for being largely responsible for damaging the reputation of the Government by this kind of high-handed behaviour.If the BJP comes to power,they should be grateful to these officers,but ensure that they are nowhere near collection of revenue in the new Government.
We will bring you the High Court order tomorrow.