My view, albeit prima facie, is that the soft-pedaling policy followed by the Madras High Court Judges has led to the present piquant situation. The lawyers appear to have been encouraged by the wrong ‘signals sent out and seemed to think that they could do anything and get away within the Court premises. Regretfully, far from being the upholders of the rule of law, the lawyers seem to have behaved as hooligans and miscreants. The incidents that transpired over a last month or so make it clear that the lawyers seemed to be under the impression that, because they are officers of the Court, they are immune from the process of law and that they could get away with any unlawful act without being answerable to the law enforcing agency. It is most unfortunate that the soft policy adopted by the Acting Chief Justice of Madras High Court and its administration sent out clearly
a wrong message that encouraged and emboldened the lawyers into becoming law breakers.

Therefore, where industry or trade associations claim both to be charitable institutions as well as mutual organizations and their activities are restricted to contributions from and participation of only their members, these would not fall under the purview of the proviso to section 2(15) owing to the principle of mutuality. However, if such organizations have dealings with non-members, their claim to be charitable organizations would now be governed by the additional conditions stipulated in the proviso to section 2 (15).

In a recent review of assessment of Banks carried out by C&AG, it has been observed that white computing the income of banks under the head ‘Profit and Gains of Business & Profession’, deductions of large amounts under different sections are being allowed by the Assessing Officers without proper verification, leading to substantial loss of revenue. It is, therefore, necessary that assessments in the cases of banks are completed with due care and after proper verification. In particular, deductions under the provisions referred to below should be allowed only after a thorough examination of the claim on facts and on law as per the provisions of the I.T. Act., 1961

The present system of review of assessments by the Administrative Commissioner was introduced in 2002 subsequent to the restructuring of the Income tax Department. Under the existing system of Inspection also the Inspecting Officer was required to comment on selected assessment orders. As this was resulting in a duplication of the review function, it has been decided to do away with the requirement to give comments on selected assessment orders as part of the annual Inspections. It was also noticed that centralisation of review work with administrative Commissioners alone was resulting in inordinate workload with these officers, which was in turn affecting the quality of the Review reports. In view of these factors Board has decided to make a clear distinction between the objectives and the contents of the Annual Inspections and Reviews. It has also decided to lay down new guidelines for review of the assessment work of Officers having assessment jurisdiction