Traders hail new sales tax tribunal benches

The state government's decision to set up two additional benches of the Maharashtra Sales Tax Tribunal has been well received in Vidarbha where over 700 cases are locked in various stages of litigation.

President of the Nag Vidarbha Chamber of Commerce (NVCC), B C Bhartia, said Nagpur needed a permanent bench and that the cost of setting up such a bench will be definitely less than establishing the bench in Mumbai.

Bhartia said a lot of refund and part payment of dealers had been blocked in litigation. With additional tribunal benches, the pendency of cases will be reduced substantially and the funds that had been blocked will be released, he said.

The two benches have been given a target of clearing around 4,000 cases every year, which includes those that are in Vidarbha. The benches are expected to visit Nagpur twice during the year and dispose pending cases.

At present, the Maharashtra Sales Tax Tribunal has four benches with a pendency of some 8,000 cases till March 31, 2005.

The new benches are expected to clear around 4,000 cases annually. Sources said that the pending 8000 cases can unlock litigation of about Rs 8,200 crore. Of these, in the Nagpur division, there are 700 cases involving a revenue of Rs 115 crore.

The two additional benches will expedite the disposal of the pending cases from all the ST divisions in Maharashtra including Nagpur, Kolhapur, Pune, Aurangabad, Mumbai (Thane, Mumbai, Bandra, Nariman Point, Mazgaon).

Each bench will have two members - one from an ST department and another from the judiciary. The official who will be inducted in the bench will of the additional commissioner rank.

Whenever necessary, the members of the additional benches will visit Aurangabad and Nagpur and hear the cases. "The additional benches will be functional for a period of three years," said B C Khatua, the Maharashtra sales tax commissioner, over the phone.

Khatua said that in Maharashtra, there were around 5.75 lakh dealers registered with the sales tax department. Of these, 50 per cent are in the Mumbai division itself.

The Nagpur division has around 60,000 registered dealers. In Maharashtra, the sales tax department collected revenue worth Rs 20,400 crore in the last financial year. For the current fiscal, the target is Rs 23,470 crore.

The Maharashtra chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh on Wednesday announced that the state will have to spend Rs 60.75 lakh to create new posts and set up an administrative machinery for the additional benches.