Lahore High Court (LHC) has issued a notice to the President of Pakistan, who has set aside an order of the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO), which has directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to vacate order under Section 122 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 and warned the assessing officer for levelling allegations without referring to any supporting evidence.
Sources told Business Recorder that LHC has admitted a constitutional petition against the President on the issue of acceptance of representation filed by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) under Section 32 of the Federal Tax Ombudsman Ordinance, 2000 against an order passed by the FTO.
It is learnt that petition was moved by a Gujranwala based taxpayer through Waheed Shahzad Butt, Advocate, challenging the acceptance of representation by the President of Pakistan against the order passed by FTO Chaudhry Abdur Rauf, stating that act of office of President is patently illegal. The order passed by office of President is un-constitutional and without lawful authority, hence, the same is liable to be declared unlawful and quashed.
Earlier, the FTO issued order to the FBR to direct the concerned Commissioner-IR to invoke revisionary jurisdiction under Section 122A of the Ordinance to vacate order passed under Section 124/122(1) of the Ordinance and dispose of the rectification application pending before the ACIR, the CIR concerned to warn the assessing officer for levelling allegation of deliberate fabrication of accounts by the chartered accountant/auditor in connivance with taxpayer without referring to any supporting evidence and all field formations to exercise regular supervisory oversight of work done by the assessing officers and ensure that prompt cognisance is taken of all whimsical and arbitrary actions.
Petitioner claimed that "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 representation under section 32 of the FTO Ordinance, 2000, the process of law is being abused badly by the office of President, petition claimed.
The petitioner claimed that it appears some officials working in the Presidency are involved in unduly favouring revenue division employees, by admitting the illegal void representations, filed against the orders passed by the FTO. The act of officials representing of the Presidency is prima facie without lawful jurisdiction, President is requested to take action against those responsible for such illegal act, under his mandate and his commitment for Zero tolerance for corruption and unfair practices because it is the duty of state functionaries to dispense justice, the lawyer pleaded.
Petitioner further claimed that the office of President is involved in violation of provisions of Federal Tax Ombudsman Ordinance, 2000, Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 and Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973, which is itself equivalent to maladministration and denial of justice. It seems that there is an intentional attempt to dump the office of the FTO who is providing real redressal of grievance to the aggrieved taxpayers of Pakistan against the patently illegal intervention by the Revenue Division employees, petitioner added.