Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, July 26: Unsatisfied with the compliance report filed by the Chief Secretary, Madhav Lal, in the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking recovery of the Sales Tax arrears worth crores of rupees from the defaulters, the Division Bench of the State High Court comprising Justice Virender Singh and Justice Mohammad Yaqoob Mir today came down heavily on the State for not taking sufficient steps to effect the recovery and explicitly told the respondents that they will have to ensure recovery of every penny from the defaulters.
When the PIL was taken up for hearing, Advocate Rohit Kapoor, Counsel for the Sales Tax Department, told the Division Bench that Chief Secretary, Madhav Lal, has filed the compliance report on all the five directions issued by the DB on June 15, 2012. Advocate Kapoor said that during the period between April 1, 2011 to April 1, 2012 and first quarter of 2012-13 financial year, an amount of Rs 6.98 crore was recovered from 966 persons in Jammu region and Rs 5.48 crore from 1888 persons in Kashmir valley.
As per the status report, the Chief Secretary, keeping in view the directions of the Division Bench, convened a meeting of Principal Secretary, Finance, Law Secretary, Additional Commissioner and other officers of the Sales Tax Department and deliberated the issue at length. Accordingly, various directions were issued to officers of Commercial Taxes and Police Organization to work in coordination.
In the status report, it was further submitted by the Chief Secretary that directions were issued to Director General of Police and Commissioner Commercial Taxes Department to ensure complete coordination for realization of taxes. As far as attachment of property of defaulters is concerned, the compliance report submitted that the same could not be resorted to because of the issue being sub-judicial in various courts.
However, Senior Advocate Sunil Sethi, who was appearing for the petitioner and had already been furnished the copy of compliance report filed by the Chief Secretary, argued that the report was not purely in consonance with the directives issued by the Division Bench on June 15, 2012.
“This report is silent on how much recovery has been made from the defaulters, whose list has already been submitted by the Sales Tax Department as per the directives of the Division Bench, and how much money is still pending against them”, Sr Advocate Sethi said while pointing out that recovery of Rs 7 crore Sales Tax arrears was yet to be affected from one person only.
Observing that official respondents could not understand the order dated June 15 in its entirety, the Division Bench said, “from the compliance report submitted by the Chief Secretary it seems that recovery prior to the period of April 1, 2011 has not been made from the defaulters”, adding “the compliance report is not strictly as per the orders issued on June 15”.
Taking serious note of compliance report being deficient on many counts, the Division Bench said, “let everybody, whosoever participated in the meeting held on July 9, including the Chief Secretary be present in the court. Let assurance comes from the Chief Secretary that entire money would be recovered from the defaulters”.
Stating that constant surveillance needed on the issue, the DB observed, “This is the public money and respondents are answerable for that. It is because of the High Court’s intervention that Government is at it. We will not leave this PIL till every penny is recovered from the defaulters”.
With these observations, the DB said, “in view of the Chief Secretary’s report being deficient on many counts and request made by Advocate Rohit Kapoor, time till August 9, 2012 is granted for filing of latest status report by the Chief Secretary strictly in compliance to the directions passed on June 15, 2012”.
It is pertinent to mention here that on June 15, the DB had directed the Chief Secretary to file an affidavit mentioning that if there was non-cooperation from the Police Department then what action has been proposed against the officers, who are disobeying the directions of the authorities because there is ample power under the Police Rules to initiate disciplinary action against in-disciplined police officers and officials.
It had also directed that a table of cases be prepared in which warrants of attachment have been issued along with the dates and whether the sale of property has been ordered or not. The reasons shall also be disclosed for not taking the steps by selling the property, the order had said.
The directions had also been issued for submission of report with regard to the defaulters who have been put under the category “migrant” from Valley and why the identification of such persons could not be established by seeking the information from the Relief Commissioner.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel