The Madras High Court on Tuesday directed the State government to suspend a State Tax Officer for having misled the court during the hearing of a batch of cases seeking exemption from payment of commercial tax. It also decided to order a probe into loss of revenue caused to the public exchequer by not conducting court cases properly due to “large scale collusion” between the government officials and the traders.
Justice S.M. Subramaniam passed the orders after being satisfied that State Tax Officer D. Mukundhan had suppressed vital facts before the court during the hearing of cases, pending in the court since 2005, seeking tax exemption on sales turnover of intraocular lenses. He directed the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes to suspend the officer with immediate effect and produce a copy of the suspension order on Thursday.
The judge ordered that proceedings must be initiated against the officer under the Tamil Nadu Civil Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1955 for misconduct, committing an act unbecoming of a government servant and dereliction of duty. He pointed out that the court had to directly interact with the State Tax Officer since the government counsel was not able to assist the court and was giving evasive replies to its questions.
All along the hearing that spanned for over 90 minutes, the officer asserted before the court that sale of intraocular lenses to doctors and hospitals within the State was exempted from tax and that only lenses sold to doctors and hospitals in other States was liable to tax. However, after the judge began dictating judgement in the open court and was at the fag end, the government counsel pitched in to state that even intra State sale was taxable.
“This court is absolutely shocked in view of the fact that all parties to the litigation totally misguided this court without informing the vital facts... The way in which the said officer answered the questions raised a doubt in the mind of the court regarding his integrity as well as the truthfulness in making such statements. One can easily draw an inference regarding possibility of collusion with other side which cannot be overruled,” the judge said.
He went on to observe: “The State Tax officer is very much aware of the entire facts as well as the sales taxes applicable for sale of intraocular lenses both within the State of Tamil Nadu and for interstate sales. In spite of the knowledge about the sales tax, the officer has intentionally made false statements and suppressed the facts for the purpose of misleading the court. Actually, this court was totally misled both by the learned Government Counsel as well as the said State Tax Officer.”
