Vdis Garb

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

T N Pandeys Just the way you want it (January 22) drew our attention to a serious development in the closing days of VDIS-97. It clearly established how the high and the mighty in the tax administration perpetrated a mangling of income tax law by making statements in public that commissioners (appeal) and IT appellate tribunals have been requested to set aside appeals before them so that the assessees can take advantage of the green channel of VDIS. This request was in blatant violation of clearly spelled-out provisions of Section 119, which have also received the unequivocal sanction of Supreme Court. The SC held that it was the absolute and total legal prerogative of appellate authorities to dispose of the appeals before them in such manner as they deemed fit and that law would brook no interference in the judicious exercise of powers by the appellate authorities. Even the apex hierarchy of tax administration was prescribed from issuing any directions or request to dispose of a case or a group of cases in a particular manner.

 

The appeal by tax mandarins in the days when the VDIS euphoria was at crescendo, to set aside sensitive cases of high profile assessees was nothing short of genuflecting before those motley band of evaders who had been legally trapped in their ingenious schemes of evasion cleverly clothed in tax planning. What is disconcerting is the fact that this illegal and unethical stooping down was done at a time when Parliament had been dissolved and fresh elections had been ordered. Maybe there is more to it than meets the eye, which might become clear once data on VDIS is made available.