The Central Excise, Customs and Gold Tribunal Bar Association has submitted a representation before the Central Excise, Customs and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) demanding vacations in summer and winter.
The Supreme Court as well as Delhi and various other High Courts traditionally observe one month (four weeks) of Summer Vacation and two weeks of Winter Vacation each year.
However, for some unknown reasons, this practice is not being followed in the CESTAT and the Other Tax Tribunals.
The letter further emphasized that the Advocates, as well as Tax Consultants, are Officers of the Court as well as the Tribunal.
“They also need a break from their onerous duties towards the Court and the clients, which they perform day in and day out. They also need rejuvenation and rescheduling of their nature of work as per their own option,” the letter said.
According to the letter, the proposal for vocation if granted will have the following palpable benefits, i.e., (i) It will bring greater efficiency to the institution as Advocates as per their needs will be able to either devote their time to their peripheral duties like updating knowledge, having break from routine to rejuvenate themselves for work efficiency, devote time to authorships or teach their office staff or members of public. (ii) It will also enable the Members who remain busy day in and day out with their highly demanding duties of hearing the matters, deciding the same after due research and writing Orders. The Members also have a time-consuming task of upgrading their knowledge and also likewise need a break from the routine to bring out greater efficiency to the institution.
“A Summer and Winter Break, therefore, will be in the interest of everyone, as in any case the period of extreme Summer and extreme Winter, lowers the efficiency of everyone. We, therefore, request accordingly, so as to initiate this step from the forthcoming Summer Season,” it said.
Subscribe Taxscan Premium to view the Judgment
