Tax Board suffers as working stalled for four months!

Jaipur: Working of Tax Board Ajmer has come to a halt for the past four months. In August last year, Ajitabh Sharma was transferred and the additional charge of Sharma’s responsibility was handed to Divisional Commissioner of Ajmer, Bhanwar Lal Mehra. But from day one, he could not strike a chord with advocates. Mehra conducted hearings merely once or twice in the court and since then, he is merely looking into the administrative affairs of the Board. Without Chairman, even the double and larger benches are not holding hearings and therefore, the number of cases has increased exponentially.

In the current government, no Chairman has been able to stay in the position for a long time, After Giriraj Singh’s retirement in April 2021, the chair of Chairman remained unoccupied for more than two months. Later, Finance Secretary T Ravikant was given the additional charge. But at that time, a question was raised that the appeal of finance cases is heard by T Ravikant in Tax Board as its Chairman. Then too hearing on cases had come to a halt.

Thereafter in September 2021, Naveen Mahajan was appointed as full time Chairman but after seven months, he was transferred and in April 2022, Ajitabh Sharma was given the responsibility of the Chairman. But the Board’s functioning had only started getting smoother when, four months later, Sharma was transferred. The tradition has been to hand over the additional charge of Tax Board Chairman to Chairman of Revenue Board, but in the current government, instead to handing over the reins to Chairman of Revenue Board, Rajeshwar Singh, the responsibility has been handed to firstly the Finance Secretary & later to Divisional Commissioner as additional charge.