Appeals filed on or after 1-4-2014

[prashantmaharishi]

At present as per direction of CBDT,  appeals filed on or  after 1-4-2014 shall be taken up for hearing by CIT (A) only  after 31.3.2015.
In march 2014 IT department has passed orders making huge additions and therefore huge demand s are created. All assessee have filed their appeal in the month of April and may 2014. Now the dilemma is that all those appeals would be heard by CIT (A) only on or after 1-4-2015. for any priority hearing , the request has to be made to CCIT and he has powers  to direct CIT (A) for fixing appeals out of turn. Therby it is ensured by CBDT that all demands that are  raised on or before 31.3.2014 and assessee filed appeal after that i.e. after 31.3.2014, demands would be recovered fully without disposal of those appeals. This is a trick employed by CBDT to recover the  demand without any effective remedy available to the assessee.

[ketanvyas1975]

You are very right. There are several issues in this matter:

Whether CBDT is right in issuing this instruction? This need to be tested through writ petition or PIL.

On one side the assessee has no chance of disposal of appeal and on other side, the department keeps on recovering the demand for budgetary targets. This also need to be brought to the notice of court. This violates principles of fairness.

One (a courageous person) may also file an RTI before CBDT to get the details of recovery made in such manner to be presented before the court. The effect thereof on the country's budget may also be analysed to be presented before the court.

The purpose for bringing this to the notice of court is that the court may direct the CBDT to set proper mechanism to see (1) either demand is stayed for the time during which the assessee's appeal can not be disposed off on account of such instruction or (2) enough number of appeallte authorities are placed to ensure prompt disposal of old appeals to clear backlog.

unless, court interfere with this issue, nothing is going to happen as people in Delhi are budgetcentric and figurescentric.

However, you deserve a special thanks for bringing this issue to this forum. This issue is of great importance for assessee at large throughout the country.

[pawansingla]

[2014] 44 taxmann.com 166 (Delhi)

HIGH COURT OF DELHI

Commissioner of Income-tax -II

v.

Maruti Suzuki (India) Ltd.*

SANJIV KHANNA AND SANJEEV SACHDEVA, JJ.
WRIT PETITION (CIVIL) NOS. 5003 & 5086 OF 2013†
FEBRUARY  21, 2014
23. We do not have figures or data on whether the demands raised, which was subject matter of stay, was sustained/upheld or were deleted by the tribunal. Merits and justification of additions is examined by the appellate forums and demands raised have relevance when they are sustained by the tribunal/High Court and the Supreme Court.

24. Registry of this Court has made available to us following data:—

A   B   C   D   E
Year   Total number of income-tax appeals   Appeals filed by CIT   Appeals filed by assessee   % of appeals filed by Assessee
2009   1367   1128   239   18
2010   2063   1790   273   13
2011   1303   1121   182   14
2012   711   578   133   19
2013   584   464   120   21
(The data/figures in columns C and D have been manually calculated and thus subject to marginal calculation error).