The move to substitute the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal with a National Tax Tribunal and to take away the High Court’s jurisdiction to hear tax appeals was a retrograde step, S. E. Dastur, tax jurist in Mumbai, has said.
Delivering the ‘K.R. Ramamani Memorial Lecture’ recently at the golden jubilee celebrations of the Revenue Bar Association, Chennai, Mr. “Soli” Dastur said that after the High Court was vested with the appellate jurisdiction in 1998, the practice had been for the Tribunal to refer a statement of the case on which the High Court would pronounce its judgment.
Referring to the move to substitute the Tribunal with a National Tax Tribunal and take away the Court’s jurisdiction he said: “Left to myself, I think it is a retrograde step because matters being argued in the High Court where a Judge is open to all laws and where there are proper hearings, I think, is certainly more productive than having a National Tax Tribunal…”
Mr. Dastur illustrated how tax rates multiply to such an extent that people felt that avoiding tax was socially justifiable. “I am not justifying it and I think it is wrong if you don’t obey the law, but then you must remember that human beings are human beings and you cannot possibly foist on them this type of liability,” he said. Citing a couple of landmark cases, Mr. Dastur argued that tax avoidance had now been accepted as the norm, even accepted as permissible among assesses who preferred to pay up the penalty to paying the tax. In his view, it was not out of place for assessees to think that they were entitled to adjusting affairs to pay the least possible tax, as from his perspective tax avoidance was not considered immoral or bad. On measures to curb black money, Mr. Dastur said stringent prosecution, rather than voluntary disclosure schemes, was likely to achieve better results. He suggested cutting delay in proceedings in High Courts, vesting the Tribunal with powers to grant stay of recovery in all matters which were subject to appeal in High Court and increasing the Tribunal’s staff strength by filling up vacancies.
Justice Jayasimha Babu former Judge, High Courts of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, unveiled a statue of Ramamani which is to be placed in the fully charitable, English-medium school he started in Madarpakkam Village, north of Chennai.
