Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 23: In a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking recovery of Sales Tax arrears worth crores of rupees, Division Bench of State High Court comprising Chief Justice M M Kumar and Justice D S Thakur today directed the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal to dispose of pending cases within three months.
When the PIL came up for hearing, Registrar State Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal submitted a list of cases where the stay has been granted and the matter was still pending consideration of the Tribunal.
After hearing Senior Advocate Sunil Sethi with Advocates Deewakar Sharma and Ravi Abrol appearing for the PIL whereas Advocate General M I Qadiri and Senior AAG Gagan Basotra for the State, the DB observed, “the perusal of the list shows that some of the matters are very old and pertain to the accounting year 1995-96, 1996-97, 1997-98, 1998-99,1999-2000, 2000-01 2001-02”, adding “the Tribunal should have accorded priority to the cases where the stay of the recovery of tax has been granted”.
“Keeping in view the huge recovery, which has been impeded on account of grant of stay, we direct the Tribunal to dispose of the matter solely on the report of the Registrar of the Tribunal expeditiously and preferably with a period of three months”, the DB said, adding “it has further been brought to the notice of the court that there is no Presiding Officer in the Tribunal for the last about two months. The Registrar General should immediately prepare a notice and take all necessary steps so that the Presiding Officer is provided expeditiously”.
“The Tribunal should send the report fortnightly with regard to the disposal of cases to the Registrar General. Likewise, a status report has to be filed by the respondents. The cases pending before the CCT and DC (Appeal) involve recoveries to the tune of Rs 10 lakh or above. As a matter of policy, the Forum should have taken up the cases where the stay is operating and disposed them of within a period of three months”, the DB said, adding “the cases where the interim order with regard to the recovery of tax has been passed, the schedule of three months should be adhered to”.
Division Bench directed Registrar Judicial to locate these cases and list the same before the appropriate bench for their early disposal. “The Registrar Judicial shall also identify the cases where recovery of tax has been stayed, even if, the recovery is less than Rs 10 lakh and be listed before the appropriate bench”, the DB added.
Division Bench also took notice of the fact that in cases where no interim order has been granted recovery has not been affected on account of genuine and in-genuine reason. “The in-genuine reasons are that the name of the defaulters and their addressees are not known”, the DB added.
Upon this, Senior Advocate Sunil Sethi pointed out that the addresses of persons like M/s Goenka and M/s Eagle Flask were stated to be unknown. “The latest status report by the Committee headed by Commissioner, Commercial Tax, J&K shall also be filed with regard to the recovery made and the steps taken in that direction”, he pleaded, adding “in number of cases, the warrants have not been executed and the reasons for non-execution are not divulged”.
On this, Division Bench directed IGP Jammu/Srinagar to file a report detailing the reasons for non-execution of the warrants against the defaulters. Accordingly, the DB directed the Registry to list the PIL on July 2, 2013.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel