"I.T. Department should be judicious to grant Stay of Demand."

Left to Right - N. D. Saha, Secretary, AIFTP; Narayan Jain, Advocate; S. K. Poddar, Advocate, and National President, AIFTP; Indu Chatrath, Chairman, AIFTP (East Zone); Deepak Jain, Advocate; Subhash Chand Agarwal, Advocate at Business Standard Smart Business event held on 30^th NOV 2013 in association with AIFTP in Kolkatta.

“The assessing officers of the Income Tax Department are generally rejecting stay petitions of taxpayers mechanically, which is improper,” said Narayan Jain, Advocate and Secretary General of All India Federation of Tax Practitioners (AIFTP), while addressing a seminar jointly organized by AIFTP and Business Standard. He also added that the Income Tax Department should be more judicious to grant Stay of Demand. He cited the decision in the case of Debasish Moulik v. CIT (reported in 231 ITR 737) of Calcutta High Court, as also decisions of Allahabad, Karnataka and Rajasthan High Courts wherein it has been held that Commissioner (Appeal) has the inherent power to grant Stay of Demand and suggested that appropriate amendments should be made in the Income Tax Act in line with the said decisions. Mr. S. K. Poddar, President of the Federation, expressed his concern on the trend of coercive action for collection of tax and said that AIFTP will take up the matter with the Central Board of Direct Taxes, and if necessary, will organize protests.

Deepak Jain highlighted the provisions of section 220(6) for grant of stay and payment in installments, and advised to approach the concerned Commissioner of Income Tax. Subash Agarwal, Advocate, explained the powers of the Income Tax Tribunal to grant a stay and urged that ITAT should be empowered to consider a stay even if an appeal is not pending before it.

Presiding over the programme, Indu Chatrath, Chairman, AIFTP (East Zone), shared the agony of taxpayers on rejection of their stay petitions even on bonafide grounds. N. D. Saha, Secretary, thanked the large number of participants. Justice B. L. Jain, former Judge of Calcutta High Court, R. D. Kakra, Ms. Medha Gope, R. K. Mishra, S. C. Garg, Arvind Agarwal and other prominent persons also attended the seminar.