9911796707
TMI Blog2018 (11) TMI 1180X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... has put it, the conditional stay in an appeal is only an interim arrangement. The repeated assessments and the preconditions may have left the Company with the feeling of victimization. Its Directors have opened their mouth against the graft or alleged graft in the Department. Normally, it pays to complain. Here, the complainant is, it seems, made to pay. So the Department could have taken a lenient view to inspire confidence in the Company that it need not end up as a victim only because it has pointed out a flaw in the system, as it were. Therefore, first, I place on record that the pre-condition of the assessee's depositing 15% demanded tax can neither be termed perverse nor illegal. Yet, I also hold it is a peculiar case that deserv ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... and registered the Exts.P1 and P2 crimes against a few officials. Then onwards the Department has been after the Company. 3. In all the next succeeding years, the petitioner has continuously been subjected to scrutiny and high pitched assessments. 4. The learned Senior Counsel, first, fairly admits that the precondition- that is, paying 15% of the disputed tax- per se cannot be termed illegal. But, then, according to him, the pre-condition must be viewed in the backdrop of the Company's complaint and the Departmental determination to persecute the Company. He stresses that people like the Company's Directors must be encouraged to contain the scourge of graft in public life. 5. The appellate authority ought to have, assert ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 9;s circulars mandate that the appellate authority has jurisdiction to impose a pre-condition up to 20% of the demanded tax. Viewed from that perspective, 15%, as imposed by the appellate authority, is far less and cannot be termed onerous. 8. Heard Sri Joseph Markose, the learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner, as also Sri Jose Joseph the learned Standing Counsel for the respondent Department. 9. Indeed, this Court as well as the Supreme Court has time and again reiterated the well-settled legal principle: discretion by a competent judicial or quasi-judicial authority calls for no interference unless it suffers from perversity or gross illegality. Here, viewed in isolation, the Exts.P8, P14, and P13 conditional orders in these wri ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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