The E-Court system has launched in Chennai bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal ( ITAT). Justice P. P. Bhatt, President ITAT officially launched e-court at Chennai on Friday.
A fully-equipped separate courtroom with seamless conferencing facilities has been set up at the Chennai bench of ITAT. Delhi, Mumbai, Nagpur and Ahmedabad benches of ITAT already have the e-court facility.
“This is aimed at delivering justice at the doorstep. Cases from places like Madurai and Coimbatore can be heard sitting in Chennai through video-conferencing,” Justice P.P. Bhatt said.
He also said that overall there are 9,000 pending cases, out of which Tamil Nadu and Puducherry region have 5,200 pending cases.
G.S. Pannu, vice president of the Tribunal said this was a step towards ease of living and would help in faster disposal of cases. N.V. Vasudevan, vice president of the Tribunal and members of ITAT, Chennai were present on the occasion.
ITAT was set up on 25 January 1941, and it was the first experiment in tribunalisation in the history of India. It is a second appellate authority under the direct taxes and first independent forum in its appellate hierarchy. The orders passed by the ITAT can be subjected to appellate challenge, on substantial questions of law, before the respective High Court.
The appeals before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal are generally heard by a division bench- consisting of one judicial member and one accountant member.
Anyone Member, though with a work experience of minimum five years in the Tribunal, can decide the appeals in a single-member bench as well.
In case of conflict of opinions by the division benches on the issues involved in an appeal, the appeals are sometimes heard by the special benches consisting of three or more members- at least one of which must be a judicial member and at least one of which must be an accountant member.
