Lahore High Court (LHC) has issued notices to the President of Pakistan, Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and four FBR employees, in a petition against the President who has set aside the FTO order wherein for the first time the FTO recommended disciplinary action against officer whose order of assessment is held by appellate authority as patently illegal.
It is learnt that the LHC has issued notices in a constitutional petition filed by a tax lawyer Waheed Shahzad Butt against the President, on the issue of acceptance of representation filed by the FBR's four tax employees under Section 32 of the FTO Ordinance, 2000 against an order passed by FTO Chaudhry Abdur Rauf, under Own Motion intervention.
The LHC order states, "This writ petition is directed against the order passed by the President of Pakistan acting as appellate authority under section 32 of the Federal Tax Ombudsman, 2000. It is contented that the petitioner filed a complaint before the Federal Tax Ombudsman against respondents (CCIR, CIR & IRAO) who are officials of Federal Board of Revenue for being guilty of gross professional incompetence and being inefficient. The Federal Tax Ombudsman vide order dated 19.10.2015 made certain recommendations against the said officials which were challenged by filing a representation before the President of Pakistan, which representation was allowed and the findings of the Federal Tax Ombudsman were set aside. It is stated that the order passed by the President of Pakistan is non-speaking order and proceeds on facts which have no relevant to the case and is, therefore, non sustainable in law", it added.
The Petitioner lawyer states order passed by the office of President is un-constitutional, illegal, arbitrary, discriminatory, violative of the norms of justice, unfair exercise of discretionary powers, and without lawful authority, hence, the same is liable to be declared unlawful and quashed. It is the duty of office of President to dispense justice and functionaries representing office of President are supposed to uphold the dignity of law and respect command and orders of the Courts. On the other hand due to illegal acceptance of the FBR employee's representation, the process of law is being abused badly.
Earlier the FTO, in landmark order of its first kind has observed that when supervisory tax officers close their eyes to the assessing officer's acts during assessment, such officials cannot justifiably say that their actions are in good faith. The FTO directed the FBR to send the IRAO to Directorate of Training and appropriate observations are recorded in the PERs of the IRAO, CIR and Chief CIR. The FTO rules that Section 2(3)(VII) of the FTO Ordinance provides disciplinary action against an officer whose order of assessment is held by a competent appellate authority to be vindictive, capricious, biased or patently illegal.
The FTO order states "Own Motion Complaint taken up for investigation to take cognisance of the matter brought to our notice by a taxpayer citizen of Pakistan, admittedly not personally aggrieved, pertaining to gross professional incompetence, inefficiency and mollified of three FBR functionaries.
The assessing and supervisory officers' lapses, tantamount to maladministration as defined in section 2(3) of the FTO Ordinance. The FBR to ensure that the IRAO attends and successfully completes a course of compulsory training in Income Tax Law and Accounts at DOT(IR). His retention in service and payment of Additional Allowance to be made contingent to appropriate certification of professional competence by the training institution; appropriate observations are recorded in the PERs of the IRAO and his supervisory officers, ie the CIR and the CCIR; senior officers in field formations exercise regular supervisory oversight of work done by the subordinate assessing officers and take prompt cognisance of all whimsical and arbitrary actions, the FTO order added.
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