Cwjc/5392/2018 Of Rural Works Department v. Commissioner Of Income Tax, Tds

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNACivil Writ Jurisdiction Case No.5392 of 2018 ====================================================== Rural Works Department, Works Division Sasaram, having its office at ZilaParishad Campus, Karghar More, Sasaram, Rohtas- 821115 through itsExecutive Engineer, Bindhyabasani Kumar, son of late Kashinath Prasad,resident of North Patel Nagar, Gokul Path, P.O. Keshri Nagar, P.S. ShastriNagar, Patna- 800024. ... ... Petitioner/s Versus 1. Commissioner Of Income Tax, TDS, having its office at Birchand PatelMarg, Patna. 2. Asst. Commissioner of Income Tax, TDS, having its office at BirchandPatel Marg, Patna. 3. Treasury Officer, Sasaram having its office in campus of S.D.O. Sadar,Sasaram. ... ... Respondent/s ====================================================== Appearance :For the Petitioner/s: Mr. D.V.Pathy, Advocate Mr. Sadashiv Tiwari, AdvocateFor the Respondent/s: Mrs. Archana Sinha @ Archana Shahi, Advocate Mr. Alok Kumar, Advocate Mr. Sanjeev Kumar, Advocate ====================================================== CORAM: HONOURABLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE and HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE S. KUMARORAL JUDGMENT (Per: HONOURABLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE) Date : 23-03-2018 This writ petition indicates a sad state of affairs inthe matter of functioning by different and insensitivity of thedepartmental authorities in dealing with the minor issues. The Rural Works Department has filed this writpetition and their grievance is against the Income TaxDepartment in the matter of attachment of their bank account.With regard to deduction of tax at source and their deposit withthe Income Tax Department, due to certain administrative and technical defects, the deduction made is not properly reflected.Even though tax was deducted and deposited by the petitioneradmittedly in a wrong TAN number, as a result the computersystem in which the deposit was made did not reflect the depositand there has been communications between the parties whichgoes to show that the mistake was pointed out by the petitioner-Department and the Income Tax Department indicated that inview of the technical nature of working of the CPC System atBanglore, defects cannot be cured and the Department, namelythe petitioner, is required to take certain action in the matter.When no action was taken by the petitioner, the bank account ofthe petitioner has been attached and the petitioner is before uschallenging the aforesaid action. The Income Tax Department may be right incontending that the tax has been deposited in wrong mannerbecause of which the deposit is not recorded and the correctionis not possible and therefore, the Department, namely thepetitioner, should take certain action in the matter. Even if the petitioner did not take any action in thematter, the Income Tax Department should not have attached thebank account of the petitioner, instead should have taken up theissue before the higher authority of the Department and tried to find out ways to resolve the same, instead of taking the extremecoercive action of attaching the bank account of the Department,namely the petitioner, which has consequential effect ofcreating adverse effect in public functioning and managing theGovernment accounts, payment of salary etc. to the employeesand the public at large. Even if the petitioner did not take any action in thematter, the Income Tax Department should not have attached thebank account of the petitioner, instead should have taken up theissue before the higher authority of the Department and tried to find out ways to resolve the same, instead of taking the extremecoercive action of attaching the bank account of the Department,namely the petitioner, which has consequential effect ofcreating adverse effect in public functioning and managing theGovernment accounts, payment of salary etc. to the employeesand the public at large. We do not appreciate the manner in which both theDepartments have functioned. The petitioner department insteadof approaching this Court should have taken up the issuethrough their Departmental Head with the Income TaxDepartment and thereafter tried to resolve the issue. The IncomeTax Department also, in case it found that the Rural WorksDepartment, namely the petitioner, has not deposited the tax inthe correct form, should have taken up the issue with the higherauthorities of the Rural Works Department or the StateGovernment and tried to resolve the issue. Instead of doing so,the Income Tax Department took the most extreme coercivesteps and the petitioner, therefore, approached this Court byfiling writ petition. In doing so, not only the public money, butpublic time and various other adverse effect has been caused. In our considered view, this is a case where thePrincipal Chief Commissioner of the Income Tax Department and the Principal Secretary of the Rural Works Departmentshould be directed to sit and resolve the issue in question and tillthen the bank account of the petitioner should be released. Accordingly, we allow this writ petition and issuethe following directions: The Income Tax Department shall release the bankaccount of the petitioner forthwith within a period of 24 hoursfrom today. Thereafter, the Principal Chief Commissioner of theIncome Tax Department and the Principal Secretary of the RuralWorks Department shall sit and resolve the issue and submit areport with regard to action taken to the Registrar General ofthis Court within 15 days from today. With the aforesaid, the writ petition stands allowedand disposed of. (Rajendra Menon, CJ) (S. Kumar, J)