Jurispruden tiol – Tomorrow's cases

By Vijay Kumar

Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.Central Excise

CBEC's failure to appoint Committee of Chief Commissioners to review order of Commissioner - Board Member asked to appear before Tribunal: CESTAT

It goes without saying that before we can decide the prayer for Condonation of Delay in filing the present appeal by the Department, it is absolutely necessary to hear and ascertain the reasons of delay from the Authority who has caused the delay, which apparently in this case is the Board as it appears it did not carry out its statutory obligation to constitute the Committee of the Chief Commissioners. Hence, we direct the Board through its Member (Personnel) to file a proper affidavit explaining the reasons for delay in constituting the Committee of Chief Commissioners and also to explain the modality it has adopted to ensure that such delays do not recur in the future jeopardizing huge amount of Public Revenue as appears to have happened in this case. As already directed in the open court, such affidavit shall be filed on or before the next day of hearing on 8/7/ 2008 . We further direct that the Member (Personnel) of the Board be present at the time of hearing to explain any further queries that the Bench may have in regard to delays taking place in fulfilling the statutory obligation of appointing the Chief Commissioners to the Committee as also what arrangement the Board had made to meet the revised time limits proposed in the Finance Bill, 2007 and enacted by the Finance Act, 2007 with effect from 11.05.2007.

Central Excise

Appeal against an Interim order of Stay passed u/s 35F of the CEA '44 by Commissioner(Appeals) is not maintainable before Tribunal

IN this case, the appellant had filed a Stay application before the Commissioner( A) who in exercise of powers conferred in terms of section 35F of the CEA '44 granted Stay subject to the assessee making a pre-deposit.

The appellant is aggrieved with this order and files an appeal before the Tribunal.

Before the Bench, the SDR submitted that the appeals are not maintainable as the provisions of Section 35B (1)(b) permits an aggrieved person to appeal to the Appellate Tribunal against an order passed by the Commissioner(Appeals) under section 35A of the CEA '44 and not the ones passed in terms of section 35F of the CEA '44 .

The Tribunal agreed with this submission and dismissed the appeals as not maintainable.

Income Tax

Block assessment - limitation starts from date of second search, not the first: ITAT Special Bench by Majority

The date on which the search was concluded is by law to be taken according to the recording made in the last panchnama . In the present case, in the panchnama prepared on 16.4.1999, it has been recorded that the search proceedings were finally concluded on that date. Since this panchnama has been issued in both the names of "Sh. Subhash Verma and Smt. Krishna Verma" the date on which the search was concluded as per this panchnama should be 16.4.1999 in both the cases. Therefore, if an uncomplicated view of the facts is taken, there should be no difficulty in holding that the Assessing Officer could complete the block assessments on or before 30.4.2001.

See our columns Tomorrow for the judgements