TIOL-DDT 760
12.12.2007
Wednesday
A recent order by the Supreme Court would be music to the ears of senior bureaucrats, who are often made to surrender their bureaucratic arrogance before the judicial might of their Lordships. Most of them mutter under their breaths unprintable vulgarities when summoned before Courts, but often do so to avoid judicial wrath.
A Gujarat High Court judge summoned the Chief Secretary and Law Secretary of the Gujarat government to be personally present before him "so that the Court may have a direct dialogue with them that what effective steps they are taking to provide sufficient staff to the office of the Government Pleader/Public Prosecutor and to avoid delay at every stage".
The Supreme Court was not pleased. In his classic style, Justice Katju observed,
++ A large number of cases have come up before this Court where we find that learned Judges of various High Courts have been summoning the Chief Secretary, Secretaries to the government (Central and State), Director Generals of Police, Director, CBI or BSF or other senior officials of the government. There is no doubt that the High Court has power to summon these officials, but in our opinion that should be done in very rare and exceptional cases when there are compelling circumstances to do so.
++ Such summoning orders should not be passed lightly or as a routine or at the drop of a hat.
++ Judges should have modesty and humility.
++Judges should realize that officials like the Chief Secretary, Secretary to the government, Commissioners, District Magistrates, senior police officials etc. are extremely busy persons who are often working from morning till night.
++ Hence, frequent, casual and lackadaisical summoning of high officials by the Court cannot be appreciated.
++We are constrained to make these observations because we are coming across a large number of cases where such orders summoning of high officials are being passed by the High Courts and often it is nothing but for the ego satisfaction of the learned Judge.
++ Such senior officials need not be made to stand all the time when the hearing is going on, and they can be offered a chair by the Court to sit. They need to stand only when answering or making a statement in the Court.
++ The senior officials too have their self-respect, and if the Court gives them respect they in turn will respect the Court. Respect begets respect.
++The Secretary General of this Court is directed to circulate a copy of this judgment to the Registrar Generals/Registrars of all the High Courts, who shall circulate copies of the said judgment to all Hon'ble Judges of the High Courts.
Once in a way summoning a senior officer to personally attend before the Court may have the desired effect in spurring babudom into action, but frequent and unnecessary summoning will only cause damage to public good and when a senior officer is summoned, he doesn't come alone but with a battalion of officers to assist him. And the citizens who want the services of these babus are told that all of them are in Court!
Click here to access the judgement
Summons through video conference - CBI Director advised to direct his officers to avoid evasive action in dealing with RTI applications - CIC
The Central Information Commission has summoned a DIG and SP of CBI to appear before it but by video conferencing. This seems to be a better way of summoning senior officers!
And in the case before the CIC , Customs officer Ajay Ganesh Ubale had asked the CBI under the RTI Act.
1. Perusal of all the document, files, related files, connected files and communications leading to and/ or relating to and/ or emanating from or in connection with the CBI Case No. RC BAI /2001/ A0027-MUM.1
2. Peruse the "Gate Register" of CBI offices at (a) Tanna House, 11-A, Natha Lal Pareekh Marg , Colaba , Mumbai-400039 (b) Kitab Mahal , Dada Bhai Naroji Road , Mumbai-4000001 (c) MTNL Cell, K. K. Chambers , Mumbai, for entry/ exit of persons from 17.7.2001 to 24.7.2004.
3. Take photocopies/ certified extracts of necessary documents from (1) and (2) above, on payment of appropriate fees
As usual the CPIO and the appellate Authority were not exactly eager to give the documents and so Ubale is before the Commission.
The Commission held,
On the first aspect, the plea of sec. 8(1 )( h) has been taken at the level of appellate authority. Whereas appellant has submitted that investigation and prosecution are now complete and over, respondents Shri Surender Pal submitted that he has no information on this having long since demitted office as SP, SCB Mumbai. On this issue, therefore, DIG Shri V.V. Lakshmi Narayanan , Chennai and Shri S.N. Saxena , SP, CBI , SCB Mumbai will appear before us through video conferencing on 21.1.2008 at 1.00 p.m. to confirm whether the investigation is complete as sworn in affidavit by appellant Shri Ajay Ganesh Ubale , or in the alternative, and if so claimed, submit evidence that in fact the matter is still under investigation/prosecution.
With regard to (ii) above, the SP, CBI directing appellant Shri Ubale to contact different offices to inspect copies of the Gate Registers makes travesty of the very basis of the RTI Act, which demands u/s 6 that the information sought is to be provided by the CPIO . It was open to CPIO to arrange for the inspection by applicant Shri Ubale , but only with the latter's consent, at the place of location of the Gate Registers. CPIO has every authority u/s 5(4) to seek the assistance of the concerned officials either in obtaining the Gate Registers for inspection by the applicant in his office or in arranging for inspection in their regular locations. But it is not open to him to redirect the appellant to different offices for obtaining information, which will amount to a deemed refusal. Since the then CPIO Shri Surender Pal has pleaded inexperience in this regard, we do not propose a penalty. However , Director CBI Shri Vijay Shankar is advised to caution his officials working on the processing of RTI applications to avoid such evasive action in dealing with RTI applications in the future. In the present case SP CBI SCB Mumbai Shri S.N. Saxena will arrange for inspection of the Gate Registers by appellant Shri Ubale within fifteen working days of the date of issue of this Notice under intimation to Shri Pankaj K.P. Shreyaskar , Joint Registrar of this Commission.
Click here for the order
LTUs - How large?
Regarding the HINDU report we mentioned yesterday in DDT , an LTU officer points out
1. There is no difference in the eligibility criteria for opting to LTU Chennai and LTU Bangalore; the notification for both is the same.
2. Assuming that the News item had wrongly mentioned Rs 1000 Crores instead of Rs 1000 lakhs, I would have been happier if correct position had been pointed out in today's DDT.
3. The threshold limit is either excise duty of Rs 5 Crores (Rs 500 lakhs) in PLA or Service Tax of Rs 5 Crores (Rs 500 lakhs) in Cash or advance Tax of Rs 10 Crores ( Rs. 1000 lakhs) as Income Tax or wealth Tax.
4. I reiterate that there is no change in the above limits.
Jurisprudentiol- Tomorrow's cases
Central Excise
Price at which goods were contracted to be sold to Government hospital will form AV of goods even if same have been sold through dealers - Tribunal orders J & J to pre-deposit Rs 15 lakhs
GOVERNMENT Hospitals had floated tenders for supply of pharmaceutical products viz. sutures. Tenders were accepted by the company on contract basis. Price was fixed between the manufacturer and government hospitals. Goods in turn were supplied directly to government hospitals. Supplies were also made to dealers and dealers in turn sold the goods to Government hospitals.
The case of the department is that when goods are sold by dealer's to hospitals, dealer's price should form the basis for assessable value of the goods and the applicant company is required to pay duty on such value.
Retrospective effect given by Sec 87 of Finance Act, 1997 to restrict credit on fuel to 10% cannot suo motu help Revenue in recovering excess credit - Demand required to be issued within 90 days - Inaction on part of Revenue cannot be held against the assessee : Tribunal
THE short facts are that by Notification 14/ 97CE ( N.T ) dated 3.5.1997, the Central Government inserted a proviso in the landmark notification 5/ 94CE ( N.T ) issued under rule 57A of the CER , 1944.
The said proviso restricted the quantum of credit that could be availed on inputs, namely, naphtha, furnace oil, low sulphur heavy stock, light diesel oil, bitumen and paraffin wax falling under Chapter 27 of the Schedule to the Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985 (5 of 1986) to the extent of 10%, whether the same was of indigenous or imported origin.
By Section 87 of the Finance Act, 1997, a validation clause saw its birth and which gave a retrospective to this notification 14/ 97CE ( N.T ) inasmuch as it laid down that the 10% restriction applies from 23 rd July 1996 onwards in spite of the fact that the proviso was inserted only on 03.05.1997.
Income Tax
Debts - settlement to make partial recovery - balance written off as bad debts - No need to prove the same - once debts written off in books it is allowable deduction; Salary expenses of previous FYs not allowable : ITAT
ADDITIONS made for written off bad debts have now become a bad case for the income tax department. But the AOs are yet to fully acknowledge this fact. Thanks to voluminous litigations on the issue, the CBDT had amended the relevant sections only to ensure that an assessee need not prove its bad debts before claiming them, and as soon as one writes off a debt as bad debt in one's books of account, the CBDT wanted its field officials to accept such a fact. However, it did not happen in the case of Alcatel India Ltd where the AO added back a sum of Rs 249 Crore written off as bad debt.
See our columns tomorrow for the judgements
Until tomorrow with more DDT
Have a nice day.
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