Central Board of Extreme Callousness – Tribunal's anguish
CESTAT Benches periodically express their anger/anguish at the lackadaisical way that the Revenue handles its high value cases before the Tribunal. It is not uncommon to see the Revenue seeking early hearing in cases involving high Revenue, but when the cases come up for hearing, there is no Departmental Representative to argue the case for Revenue, defeating the whole purpose of seeking early hearing.
Yesterday, the Kolkatta Bench of the C ESTAT in MISCELLANEOUS ORDER NO. M/206/ KOL /08 Dated : 07.08.2008, observed,
Normally for cases Involving Rs.1.00 C rore and more of duty, penalty etc., the Department has been applying for early hearing and as a general practice, we have been allowing early hearing in such cases. Since beginning of this week from Monday (4.8.2008) onwards, we have been hearing requests from the DRs to adjourn cases involving high amounts of duty and penalty on the ground that the Id. Jt. C DR is required to argue these cases and he has gone on leave on medical ground. In respect of cases involving high revenue stakes, normally the Department should be interested in early disposal of the stay petitions which may result in pre-deposits of duty and penalty. Since now we are having Roster of daily lists which are being prepared almost 1 to 1 & ½ months in advance, any adjournment of such cases means postponing of hearing by more than a month. To obviate such delay, we have directed the ld. SDR , Shri J. A. Khan to take up the matter with the ld. C DR and the Board for deputing the Jt. C DRs from Delhi/Mumbai as was done earlier pursuant to our earlier order dated 10.1.2008 (copy enclosed). As we have not seen any progress In this regard despite the ld. SDR taking up the matter with his superiors, the Assistant Registrar is directed to send a copy of this order to the ld. C DR/Board as well as to the C hief C ommissioners and the C ommissioners in the Zone, so that appropriate arrangement is made for departmental representation in the high stake cases and the inconveniences caused to the litigant public are avoided.
The order dated 10.1.2008, referee to by the Bench reads as,
Miscellaneous Order No. 5/ KOL /2008 - Dated : January 10, 2008
We find that adequate number of competent DRs have not been posted to argue the Revenue cases before East Zonal Bench resulting in ineffective representation of the departmental cases, which is detrimental to public interest. As such, the A.R. is directed to inform all the Appellant/Respondent C ommissioners in the Zone to depute competent officials to ensure effective representation of their cases before the Tribunal. The AR may also send a copy of this Order to all the C hief C ommissioners in the Zone and the Member ( L&J ), CBE&C , New Delhi for their information.
On many occasions, the Tribunal has expressed its deep displeasure and sent copies of its orders to the Revenue Secretary, CBEC Chairman and Members of the Board– but has anyone of the above worthy mighty officers ever reacted? For the Revenue Department, the CESTAT is just another subordinate office!
Is there no way out of this mess? The Cabinet Secretary has written to all Secretaries to curtail expenditure on tours and other activities to save a little money for the Government and here you have the Government not bothered about defending/fighting high value Revenue cases– no wonder the Apex C ourt says that not even God can save this country!
How about paying the Departmental Representatives a little more? Why can't we pay each DR at least Rs. 1000/- for each case that he argues? It's not really big money for the Government. In 1997, KP Joseph, a former AG wrote that the pigs and cattle on the government farms in Bihar live in greater style and comfort than the poor Governor. The government spent only about Rs 1 C rore a year on the Governor, while each of the six government farms in the Ranchi district spent Rs 20 C rore on feeding and looking after the lucky pigs and cattle.