Cost For Unnecessary Litigation by Revenue

[CA DEV KUMAR KOTHARI]

Justice administration:

Cost awarded in favor of taxpayer – such orders with further enquiry and action against erring officers can reduce litigation and save lot of time of honorable courts.

Relevant links:

Ms. Chain v. Under Secretary, Government of India, Ministry of Finance, Central Board of Direct - 2013 (9) TMI 53 - DELHI HIGH COURT

Courts are overburdened:

Courts are overburdened due to pending cases. For this burden we find the following major reasons:

1. Un-necessary cases by government and against government. Litigation is much more by and against government due to wrong actions, inactions, by government officers. Government itself indulge into un-necessary litigation and wrong actions of government officers or inactions causes private parties to indulge into litigation to protect themselves from adverse effect of wrong orders of government authorities..
2. Advocates – it is experienced that many Advocates are interested to linger cases and do not want to get them adjudicated fast. Particularly advocates who are pleading for dishonest people and criminals try their best to drag cases. There can be no better example than Indira Gandhi assassination/ murder case which dragged very long.
3. Dishonest litigants – considering experience in some of cases related with author and his associates, clients, others and on reading of reported / webhosted judgments and orders etc. prima facie it can be said that courts are helping dishonest people. Dishonest people get lot of time by adopting delaying tactics and then they get very favorable settlement.    
4. Courts themselves- they have adopted such lingering practices that cases lingers for years, and dishonest litigants take advantages of slow processes involving many un-necessary steps , processes and undesirable adjournment. A case which can be decided by looking at admitted facts and documents, undisputed facts etc. within in 4-6 months can be lingered for decades due to defective, lengthy systems and processes and delaying practices adopted by advocates of dishonest parties and unfortunately – willingly or un-willingly allowed by judges by granting them time and allowing long adjournments.

Courts rarely award costs. Even when cost is awarded it is petty amount. Suitable amount of costs in favor of adversely affected parties is required to provide a hindrance for un-necessary litigation. If courts award handsome costs, then dishonest litigants will have to think seriously before indulging into litigation and adopting delaying practices.

If the processes and steps in courts can be simplified, process and rules provide for filing of all related documents and documents relied on with the petition or at the time of filing of petitions (instead of using prayer – the petitioner/ opposite party craves leave to refer the same later on … ) , service of petition upon opposite parties with all documents, limited time allowed to opposite parties to submit their evidence and objections, and other steps, similarly limited time be allowed for reply to objections etc. then many un-necessary steps can be avoided, and many cases can be decided in one or two hearings.

A recent case of cost awarded by court:

In case of Ms. Chain V. Under Secretary, Government of India, Ministry of Finance, Central Board of Direct Taxes the honorable Delhi High Court awarded cost of Rs.15000/- in favor of Ms. Chain who is an income-tax assessee. The reason for awarding cost is that due to departments actions assessee was driven to unnecessary litigation even after concluding order had been passed in her case.

Therefore , cost was to awarded against revenue for such a conduct. Full facts are not readily available. However, the observation and order of Court are reproduced below with highlights added by author for an analysis:         

1. It is an admitted fact that since the last date of hearing all the jewellery has been returned to the petitioner at Ahmadabad. Now, nothing remains with the respondents. However, since the petitioners were driven to litigation to retrieve the jewellery even after the order was passed by the CIT (Appeals) as far back as on 17-05-2010, we feel that the petitioner ought to be awarded costs. Thus, while disposing of this writ petition, as no further directions are necessary, we direct I that the respondents, in particular, respondent No.6 shall pay costs of Rs. 15,000/- to the petitioner within two weeks.

Tribunal and High Court can award costs:

Tribunals and High courts can award costs as per specific provision in relevant law or as per general law of land and also as per inherent powers. However, costs are allowed rarely and that too at very low figure of amount. Suitably substantial costs, if awarded, can go a long way in reducing un-necessary litigation.

Readers can also read other articles by author on this website by searching article section by his name and / or with unnecessary litigation in search criteria.