ISLAMABAD: Appellate Tribunal Inland Revenue Registrar Zahid Habib has claimed that the tribunal was striving to ensure complete compliance of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) directives regarding disposals of tax matters.
Talking to Customs Today, Habib said that the tribunal is bound to comply with the IHC directives and violation of the directives was not an option.
The ATIR registrar said that in recent months, the ATIR had ensured hearing and disposal of cases remanded back to the tribunal. Members of the tribunal, both judicial and accountant, were holding day-to-day hearing of cases in order to ensure timely decision on the matters.
Few applications, on which the parties filed petitions to formulate larger-bench, were pending since establishing a larger-bench was not possible without the chairman-whose office was lying vacant since months.
He underscored that ATIR benches made by the former chairman, Javid Iqbal, were functioning as per routine in backdrop of Lahore High Court’s decision which allowed tribunal’s existing benches to perform even in absence of chairman.
In absence of regular chairman, senior members at respective regional offices of tribunal were marking cases to already existing benches which had been a function of chairman prior to the LHC judgement, he said.