The Commissioner of Income Tax vs Rupam Pictures P. Ltd.

These matters were listed for directions because the Board contains the following remarks of the Registry (i) Books not filed; (ii) Notice not issued; (iii) Affidavit of service not filed; (iv) Paper Books not ready; (v) No Index; (vi) No rubber stamp on the acknowledgement (vii) Tribunal papers not received; (viii) Only one set of statement of case; and (ix) Index is incomplete.

Each of these References and at the instance of either of the parties have been forwarded by the Tribunal and seeking an answer and opinion on certain questions of law.

In addition to the directions issued by our order dated 9th April, 2015, we find that in some of the appeals there are objections to the effect that "Notice not issued". We do not understand whether by this endorsement the Registry is indicating that it has not issued any notice to the opposite party simply because it was not provided with the paper-books or additional copies of the Reference paper-books. If that is how the Registry is proceeding, then, it is for the Revenue''s advocate to satisfy the Registry that even though a copy may not be supplied to the Registry to effect the service or to issue notice, yet, the other procedural formalities have been completed by the Revenue. Let the Revenue''s representatives and advocates, therefore, appear before the Registry officials and indicate as to how the office objections have been complied with. We grant the same time of eight weeks as is granted in other cases.

We would highly appreciate if out of the 1500 References approximately pending in this Court and from 1995, the parties intimate to the Registry despite any office objections being complied with or otherwise, that the questions referred by the Tribunal may be at either parties instance, have indeed been taken up as questions of law and already answered by the Court. They have been already answered by either this Court or by the Hon''ble Supreme Court of India. There could be situations where legal provisions based on which questions have been referred for opinion of this Court have undergone drastic changes or have been deleted completely. In all these eventualities, we would be spared answering the questions in individual References after they are called out serially. If such an exercise as is expected from the parties is undertaken and the Registry is reported the number of matters and cases from this list of 1500 References and which are covered one way or the other, we would immediately take them up and dispose them off accordingly. We would expect parties to take this trouble and labour and inform and intimate the Registry. At the first instance, this may be done in the case of 100 matters which were listed for directions on 9th April, 2015 and today. We would then take up the References for disposal either on 23rd April, 2015 or on 30th April, 2015. We would also expect that the remaining cases are notified for directions on 7th May, 2015. In other words, References other than those listed on 9th April, 2015 and today shall be listed for directions on 7th May, 2015.