Lahore High Court (LHC) has issued a notice to Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to appear before the court on November 22, 2016 in a contempt of court case for violation of Right to Information laws and non-implementation of high court's order. It is learnt that the court has issued the notice in the case in the contempt petition Civil No. 2669-W-2016.
According to the petitioner tax lawyer Waheed Shahzad Butt, the FBR has failed to implement the order passed by LHC wherein it ruled that recommendations of Alternate Dispute Resolution Committee (ADRC) constituted under fiscal statutes like Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 and Sales Tax Act, 1990, are not secret under Freedom of Information Ordinance, 2002 (FOI) and right of individual privacy has no application to the proceedings of ADRC.
Tax lawyer had challenged the FBR's denial to provide information relating to decision/recommendation issued by ADRC. LHC ruled that Citizens have been granted a right to access to official/public record and that an applicant (requester) need not provide any reason for seeking such record. In fact it is a complete, self-contained, exhaustive code in regard to a person's right to access to information/record of public bodies.
When contacted the Petitioner states that when application was not responded to by the FBR, he approached the Federal Tax Ombudsman, who has directed Chairman FBR to provide Orders passed by FBR on the recommendations of the ADRCs, under FOI as guaranteed by Article 19-A of the Constitution. FTO ruled that access to information is a sine qua non of constitutional democracy.
The public has a right to know how pubic functionaries do their job. The responsibility of public functionaries to disclose what they do and how they do works against both corruption and highhandedness. As a rule, information should be disclosed.
LHC order states "The FBR instead of complying with the direction of FTO rushed to the President of Pakistan to get its decision set aside even though the President had no authority to entertain the said representation.
The Board and its Chairman did not pass any order on the petitioner's application and the President did not furnish any reasons for claiming Section 8 exclusion on the recommendations given by ADRC".
The recommendations of ADRC, which are made under a statutory arrangement, are not covered by the exclusion contained in section 8 (c) of the FOI Ordinance. Firstly, in order for a matter to be referred to ADRC it has to be pending before the Appellate Authority, which essentially means that the matter is under litigation between the Revenue and the tax payer and pending before an adjudicatory forum.
The record of such litigation can by no stretch be termed as private record. Secondly, the alternate dispute resolution mechanism as the name implies is a system for resolving the disputes between the parties out of the court, which system operates alongside the normal adjudicatory mechanisms and thus cannot be allowed to be shrouded in mystery.
The very purpose for which the FOI Ordinance was promulgated was thus defeated by the Board and the President and that too without application of mind and, it appears, for improper motives. The respondents are accordingly directed to forthwith provide the requisite information/documents to the Petitioner, LHC ordered.
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