HC stays service tax on senior advocates; seeks reply from Centre, CBEC

The Allahabad High Court on Monday stayed a notification issued by the Central Board for Excise and Customs (CBEC) whereby senior advocates had been brought under the purview of service tax.

Passing the order, a division bench, comprising Justice V K Shukla and Justice U C Srivastava, asked the Centre and CBEC to file their counter-affidavits within four weeks and posted the matter for further hearing after six weeks.

The order was passed on the writ petition of Shashi Nandan, a senior advocate practising in the High Court, who had challenged CBEC's notification dated March 1, 2016 contending that it violated fundamental rights laid down

in Articles 14 (equality before law) and 19(1)(g) (to practise any profession or to carry on any trade or business of one's choice) of the Constitution.

The petitioner has also alleged that the notification was "discriminatory" since it made a distinction between those designated as "senior advocates" and other legal practitioners.