1000 appeals and three and a half month later – Superb performance of CESTAT, Kolkotta
After deciding 1000 appeals in a short period of 3 and a half month, the Kolkotta Bench of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Tribunal, newly reconstituted on 7th February, 2007, has now accepted a suggestion from the Association of tax lawyers and consultants to travel to different parts of Eastern India and decide appeals at places where the tax disputes have arisen. Under the scheme of taking justice to the door steps of the appellants, the first Circuit Bench is going to be held in Bhubaneswar during the week 4-8 June, 2007. The Circuit Bench will subsequently travel to Siliguri, Jamshedpur, Ranchi and Shillong later this year. The local Commissioners of Customs and Excise are being approached to provide the minimal infrastructure required to hold these Circuit Benches.
The Kolkotta Bench had to adopt various practical measures during this period to be able to settle large number of tax disputes. While it sorted out several hundreds of crores of Rupees of tax disputes pending very long for major industries in the eastern region (Tata Chemicals, TISCO, Tata Motors, SAIL, ONGC, IOC, Bata, Hindustan Lever to name a few), it made special efforts to decide hundreds of cases of small tax payers. Spate of disposal was increased by clubbing hearing of cases involving similar issues, hearing cases at length at the admission stage and deciding the cases finally instead of merely granting stay, and holding special sittings for small appeals in the afternoon after hearing Division Bench cases in the forenoon. The Bench also split into two on few days and the Members, Dr. C. Satapathy and Shri D. N. Panda separately held two Single Member Benches to hear and decide a very large number of small appeals by using a vacant Chamber of a Commissioner as a temporary Court room. The cooperation of the Bar, Departmental Representatives, and the Registry has been crucial in increasing the level of disposal from around 65 appeals a month during the previous 4 years 2003 to 2006 to near about 300 appeals a month during this short period. The pendency is now a little over 1900 cases.
If this going rate continues, the entire pendency will be wiped off in seven months.