Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 26: In a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking recovery of Sales Tax arrears from the defaulters, Division Bench of High Court comprising Justice Virender Singh and Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey today granted time to the counsel for the petitioner for submitting suggestions after going through the latest status report filed by the Department of Commercial Taxes.
When the PIL came up for hearing, Senior Advocate Sunil Sethi appearing for the petitioner submitted that though respondents have filed their compliance report yet the concerned department is moving at a snail’s pace and no coercive methods have been adopted till date for recovery of arrears of tax in most effective manner.
Upon this, Senior Additional Advocate General Gagan Basotra submitted that in the detailed compliance report submitted now, it has been specifically mentioned that 16 defaulters have been arrested due to execution of warrants of arrest. Out of which 14 defaulters have deposited the arrears of taxes.
“Recovery drive has also been started vigorously in compliance to the directions of the Court and the Department of Commercial Taxes is making all its sincere efforts for realization of the arrears of the taxes”, he said, adding “a huge amount has already been recovered from the defaulters, which have been tabulated in the compliance report”.
He further submitted that Inspector General of Police (IGP) of Jammu and Kashmir Zones have also taken up the matter very seriously and sent a communication to the Comm-issioner Commercial Taxes J&K to lodge information with the concerned police about the cheating committed by the certain defaulters along with entire material so that the defaulters are brought to book.
On this, Senior Advocate Sunil Sethi assisted by the Advocate Deewakar Sharma stated that he may be given some time to peruse the latest compliance report minutely enabling him to put forth his suggestions which might facilitate the concerned authorities for recoveries of arrears of taxes.
Upon this, Division Bench permitted the time and directed the Registry to list this Public Interest Litigation in the week commencing October 21, 2013.
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