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Un-necessary litigation and deployment of large team of advocates by Governments causing brain drain, wastage of valuable time of highly learned persons.

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Un-necessary litigation and deployment of large team of advocates by Governments causing brain drain, wastage of valuable time of highly learned persons.
DEV KUMAR KOTHARI By: DEV KUMAR KOTHARI
March 9, 2023
All Articles by: DEV KUMAR KOTHARI       View Profile
  • Contents

Reported case under study:

C.C.E. AND S.T., SURAT I VERSUS BILFINDER NEO STRUCTO CONTRUCTION LTD. - 2022 (12) TMI 604 - SUPREME COURT

Appellants:

Appellant in this case are  Revenue/ GOI or say UOI  through C.C.E. AND S.T., SURAT I who is  appellant  as mentioned.

For finding out process of orders and judgments author searched website of and on search on https://main.sci.gov.in/judgments

With Civil Appeal No(s). 674/2021  no record found.

With Civil Appeal No(s). 4465/2021  no record found.

With Civil Appeal No(s). 4466/2021  no record found.

With judgment date 06.02.23 no record found.

Search with respondent BILFINDER DATE 06.02.23 TO 06.02.23 NO RECORD FOUND

Search with respondent BILFINDER DATE 06.02.23 TO 06.03.23 NO RECORD FOUND

Author could find  page  for search of orders with  IA numbers that is   https://main.sci.gov.in/interlocutary-application

There are two columns for search

Search IA   and second column is blank without any sub column for number, year, type , captcha, party name etc.

Like IA no.  7353 /2021  , 7353 of 2021, 2021/ 5373  n writing IA number and year in different styles search could not take place and result shown was  Proper input required.

On other searches on web also author could not find judgment / order of High Court against which appeal was heard by the Supreme Court.

Subject matter:

Without reading of the impugned judgment, against which these appeals were fled, author can consider the subject matter on reading of the judgment / order of Supreme Court as follows:

These are appeals against judgments/ orders of High Court (s).  Appeals have been filed by C.C.E. AND S.T., SURAT I and other appeals can be by the same CCE or some other CCE or authority , it is not mentioned in the order only CA and IA numbers are mentioned in the reported judgment on this website and also judgment  as reported  on the website of taxguru.

There is no mention or discussion about judgment of High Court, grounds of appeal before the Supreme Court, contentions raised by parties and their counsels.

Judgment / order start with information provided as a note tendered on behalf of the Union Government in respect of the steps which have been taken in pursuance of the previous order dated 14 November 2022 for ensuring e-filing of appeals by the Department before the High Courts and Tribunals.

Therefore, it is clearly a case about ensuring e-filing of appeals by the Department before the High Courts and Tribunals.

From judgment / order with highlights added by author:

In paragraph 2 it is mentioned as follows ( with highlights added by author)

The note also contains the following status position :

· “In case of CBIC, about 72% of the appeals have been filed through electronic mode and wherever there are system glitches, CBIC field formations have filed appeals by physical mode.

· CBDT informed that field formations have been filing appeals/petitions in physical as well as in e-filing mode. In compliance of the directions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, field formations have been directed to ensure that filings of appeals/petitions before the High Court’s should take place in the e-filing mode only.

· It has been informed by the Department of Law and Justice that ITAT has undertaken implementation of e[1]filing of appeals in phased manner. At present, in ITAT, appeals are being filed both e-filing as well as physical mode.

· CESTAT has communicated that they have taken up the matter with NIC for expeditious implementation of e-filing in CESTAT.”

In paragraph 3 it is mentioned as follows ( with highlights added by author):

A further status report shall be filed on or before the next date of listing indicating the progress. The Union of India shall ensure that the entire filing of Revenue appeals before the High Courts and the Tribunals is carried out in the e filing mode. An updated position of compliance shall be placed on the record.

As per para 4  the case is to be listed  on 17 April 2023.

About appeals and interlocutory applications:

On reading cause  title we find two appeals and many about  interlocutory applications .

About  interlocutory applications (I.A.) mentioned in the judgement namely:

IA. No. 4465-4466/2021 (XVII-A) ( IA No.12176/2021-EXEMPTION FROM FILING C/C OF THE IMPUGNED JUDGMENT and IA No.12175/2021-STAY APPLICATION and IA No.12174/2021-CONDONATION OF DELAY IN FILING APPEAL) 

Author could not find a reference on judgment in appeal – impugned judgment

In the reported judgment we find twice impugned judgment but there is no mention about High Court , and date of order.

From cause titles we find that there are appeals ( it must be against judgments of High Courts, and there are IA for seeking exemption from filing certified copy of judgments in appeal, and IA for condonation of delay , and for stay.

This case shows that a taxpayer has to file petitions/ applications or appeals seeking e-filing mode. The revenue is not obtaining certified copy of orders in appeal and seeking exemption from the same by the Supreme Court.

There is delay in filing of appeal and therefore there are IA seeking condonation of delay.

There are application for seeking stay on order of High Court.

Judges:

We find that three judges heard the matter as mentioned in the judgment  namely:

CORAM :

1.  HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE

2. HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA

3.  HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE J.B. PARDIWALA

We find  a large number of senior counsels numbering 12 at least as mentioned in the judgment  appearing for GOI:

For Appellant(s)

1. Mr. Vikramjit Banerji, A.S.G.

2. Mr. Ashok Kumar Panda, Sr. Adv.

3. Mr. Mukesh Kumar Maroria, AOR

4. Mr. S.A. Haseeb, Adv.

5. Mr. Rupesh Kumar, Adv.

6. Mr. Shyam Gopal, Adv.

7. Ms. Swarupama Chaturvedi, Adv.

8. Mr. Adit Khorana, Adv.

 9. Ms. Priyanka Das, Adv.

10. Mr. Digvijay Dam, Adv.

11. Mr. Merusagar Samantaray, Adv.

12. Mr. Bhuvan Mishra, Adv.

And for  Respondent(s) three advocates appeared  namely:

1. Ms. Charanya Lakshmikumaran, AOR

2. Ms. Apeksha Mehta, Adv.

3. Ms. Falguni Gupta, Adv.

It is quite natural that the taxpayers  who appealed in High Court and found a favorable order has to deploy  advocates in the Supreme Court when Revenue filed appeal against judgment of High Court. The tax payer was  definitely under pressure to protect its interest and to save from demands raised or improper action taken by tax authorities.

About loss of human resources:

Unnecessary litigation and deployment of large team of advocates by Governments is  causing brain drain, wastage of valuable time of highly learned persons.

Earlier also author has written some articles on un-necessary litigations by Governments and its departments . Latest  may be  as follows:

AVOID EXCESSIVE PUBLIC SPENDING ON UN NECESSARY LITIGATION AND ENGAGING EXCESSIVE NUMBER OF COUNSELS.

An Article By: - DEV KUMAR KOTHARI  December 21, 2022 o the link:

https://www.taxmanagementindia.com/print/print_Article.asp?ID=10891

It is necessary that unnecessary litigation and brain drain should be checked.

 For example, in case under study we find:

Various IA could be avoided by timely action taken by team of UOI/ GOI/ Tax departments by filing appeals belatedly and without certified copy of order of High Court.

Number of judges: 

Three honorable  judges   heard appeals. It need to be examined whether three judges bench was necessary or  bench of two judges could hear the matter. If at present three judges bench is provided, there should be amendment in policy of providing lesser number of judges. Even in such matters a single judge bench can be considered.

Number of advocates:

Large number of advocates appeared only to provide information about steps taken by government and its various departments about e-filing  , use of  ITES etc. This could have been done by one or two counsels, rather by AOR (Advocate of Record). Because various departments could provide information to AOR and he could have compiled with information and presented in manner required as per Court Rules.

In courts we find excessive number of advocates due to reason that large number of cases are fixed by including in cause lists which are not likely to be heard. Advocates form a large team and carry many juniors  which are not necessary but are taken as a way of style and to charge higher fees. Thus it can be said that Courts are the place where there is large scale idle time  and loss of time of highly learned people.

 

By: DEV KUMAR KOTHARI - March 9, 2023

 

 

 

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