I-T refunds continue to be delayed as top posts lie vacant

Have you been facing delays and difficulties in refund of your taxes? That’s perhaps because about 50 posts of joint commissioner of the income tax department in the city have been lying vacant for a year and a half.

Over 500 posts of joint commissioners across the country are vacant. The Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) decided to promote over 300 officers to fill up the vacancies on September 20, 2010. But the decision was challenged in the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Delhi.

“The dearth of joint commissioners has resulted
in each deputy commissioner handling three to four charges. This has severely affected the working of the department. In many cases, refunds between Rs1 lakh and Rs1 crore are not being issued, causing hardships to tax payers, resulting in grievance,” said an income tax department source.

The dispute is between the direct recruits (DR) recruited through UPSC and the promotee officers (PO) already in the Indian Revenue Service who would be hired through the State Service Commission.

Having worked in the department even before the DRs were hired, the POs claim priority in promotions. But the DRs, being on parallel posts, deemed a 1:1 ratio for promotion as fair.

In September 2010, the list prepared by DPC included 80% POs and 20% DRs. The DRs objected and appealed in CAT.

CAT, in its order recently, does not seem to have cleared the confusion. “Even the CAT order now has given directions that the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has to prepare a fresh seniority list within 15 days.

This has never been done in the department before, so the fresh list will also be based on the same civil list of the DPC which was disputed in CAT. Another week for raising objections and one more to resolve them have also been granted,” said the IT source.