By TIOL News Service

AHMEDABAD, OCT 15, 2018: IN the matter of the petitioner filing a Special Civil Application seeking installment facility for paying the service tax dues, the High Court had issued urgent notice making it returnable on 03.10.2018, to the respondents viz. Commissioner of Central GST and the Superintendent, Vadodara.

Despite such service, on 03.10.2018, no one had remained present on behalf of the said respondents.

Therefore, although not required to, the High Court had adjourned the matter for a week to enable the said respondents to appear and assist the Court through panel counsel.

The matter was again called out on 10 th October but no appearance was made on behalf of the respondents.

In the meantime, the petitioner's nine bank accounts have been frozen.

The High Court, therefore, observed -

"4. For the said respondents, this may be a small issue. For the petitioner, it is not. The least courtesy that the official respondents can show to the Court is to put up an appearance and answer to the Court's queries through Government counsel. The said respondents maintain a panel of advocates who represent them in cases before the High Court. We fail to see why such arrangement should not have been made in the present case. The respondents cannot expect multiple notices or reminders from the Court for their appearances. This is not one off incident. Routinely, we find that there is a communication gap between the authorities and the panel advocates or the Government Standing Counsel in Central Excise and Customs department and the Union of India organization. Many times on the returnable dates or for few dates thereafter, there is no appearance of the official respondents. Filing of reply thereafter takes long time. Even after filing the reply when the matters are called out, we often do not find the presence of the Government advocates. Even when the matters are taken up for hearing often times, the Government advocates need to revert back to the respondents for further instructions since, the replies filed, sometimes do not cover all issues."

Commenting that on account of the above lackadaisical approach of the respondents, the Court is left with very poor assistance, the High Court permitted appearance of another Advocate, who had volunteered to appear on behalf of the respondents, subject to reply being filed (by respondents) on or before 17.10.2018 accompanied with a proof of payment of Rs.10,000/- to be deposited before the State Legal Services authority. The High Court also mentioned that it was open for the Government to consider whether such cost should be recovered from the erring official.

By way of an interim relief, freezing order of the petitioner's bank accounts was suspended.

(See 2018-TIOL-2159-HC-AHM-ST)