How they perpetuate Litigation

By Vijay Kumar

ON 03.12.2015, on an appeal from the Commissioner of Central Excise, Ahmedabad-II against a CESTAT Order, the Gujarat High Court passed a brief order as given below.

1. From the impugned judgement of the CESTAT, we notice that, the dispute before the Tribunal was confined to the demand of Rs. 68,630/- which was to be recovered from the assessee in cash. Thus, the revenue implication involved in the appeal is limited to the principal sum of Rs. 68,630/-.

2. In view of the instructions prescribed under the circular dated 17.08.2011 by the CBEC limiting tax appeal to the High Court on monetary limits, this tax appeal is dismissed .

Obviously, the Commissioner was not happy with this order of the High Court. So, he filed a review petition against the order in the same High Court. The High Court in its order dated 11.03.2016, the full text of which is reproduced here, dismissed the review petition:

1. The delay condonation application is filed by the Revenue. In filing review petition, there is a delay of 6 days. We would have readily condoned the same after hearing the other side. However, we also perused the review petition and the ground, on which, the Revenue seeks recall of our order dated 03.12.2015 in Tax Appeal No. 928 of 2015. Such tax appeal was disposed of on the ground of low tax effect recording that the disputed amount is only Rs. 68,630 /-. The CBEC circular dated 17.08.2011 would not permit filing of appeals before the High Court involving tax effect of less than Rs. 10 lacs. Review is sought on the ground that this circular provides for certain exceptions, one of them being when the validity of the statute is in question. Admittedly, in the tax appeal, the validity of any statute was not a question. The contention of the Revenue appears to be that the Tribunal had given benefit to the assessee on the basis of invalidation of Rule 8(3A) of Central Excise Rules,2002. However, this is entirely a different matter and the case, therefore, would not fall under the such exception.

2. In the result, delay condonation application and the review petition both are dismissed.

A double dismissal is not what the Revenue can easily accept. So, they took the matter in appeal to the Supreme Court, as usual with an application for condonation of delay.

The Supreme Court heard the matter on Monday and ordered:

For Rs. 68,000 , they took the matter to the High Court twice and even after the High Court emphatically dismissed their appeal and review petition, they with singular determination took the matter to the Supreme Court where the Additional Solicitor General of India along with three other lawyers represented the mighty Revenue Department. How much money they must have spent on this case for the lofty goal of recovering a paltry sum of Rs. 68,000 and that too after the Board has clearly told them that they cannot go to the High Court if the amount involved is less than 15 lakh rupees and to the Supreme Court if the amount is less than 25 lakh rupees. If they did not understand the Board or has no respect for it, the High Court told them twice that they should not have filed the appeal and yet they took the matter to the Supreme Court. Ironically, the Board did not follow its own instructions and allowed the SLP to be filed in the Supreme Court. Perhaps they don't realize that it was the taxpayers' toil that they were squandering with impunity.

And the Chairman speaks of "Mission Zero" before getting into GST. What will happen in GST regime in the hands of these litigation loving officers who will go to any extent to prove a point even against their boss (the Board) and the Courts?