The Reader

 

Dear Members

For your information.
 

With Warm Regards;

CA UNMESH NARVEKAR

M. Com., F.C.A., I.C.W.A., C.S., D.I.S.A.

Vice-Chairman - Vasai  Branch of WIRC of ICAI.

_____________________________

M/S. Unmesh Narvekar & Co.

A/004, New Mira Palace Soc. Ltd.,

Siddhivinayak Nagar, Mira Road (E),

Thane-401104, INDIA

Tel: 022 –28457965 / 9821236179

 

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Bharat Gosar <bharatgosar@gmail.com>
Sent: Sat, March 27, 2010 12:19:34 AM
Subject: Complai to the finance department against The Commissioner of Sales Tax - Maharashtra - Mr. Sanjay Bhatia.- So true

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ankit Shah <ankitbs@yahoo.com>
To: mkgohel@mtnl.net.in
Date: 
Subject: Fw: Complaints about The Commissioner of Sales Tax - Maharashtra - Mr. Sanjay Bhatia.

Pls find copy of complaint sent to -

1. (Principal Secretary to CM) prsectocm@maharashtra.gov.in; prsecretary1tocm@maharashtra.gov.in
2. chiefsecretary@maharashtra.gov.in; JPDange@maharashtra.gov.in
3. (Principal Secretary - Finance) VKKanade@maharashtra.gov.in & sec_finance@maharashtra.gov.in

Pls circulate the above said email address to all our members of association who are really fed up with the nature and style of working of Mr. Bhatia and would be really happy if some appropriate action is taken against him.

Pls send complaints in large numbers so as to bring different issues to the knowledge of the above said persons.

Thanks

Sir,

It is for the 1st time I am writing a mail to you and that too a complaint regarding the indecent behaviors of the present Sales Tax Commissioner - Mr. Sanjay Bhatia. Though generally no one would like to complain, but for the last 1 yr or more, Mr. Bhatia has been a very much headache to not only the dealer and the tax practitioners association, but even the officers of the department.

It has been heard from a plenty of the officers who are willing that the present commissioner should vacate his office since he is overdue for his transfers, but is not willing to leave.

My main concern towards making a complaint for Mr. Bhatia would not have arise, but for irrational circulars which keep popping out of his office every now and then, making it compulsory to be followed not only by the officers, but by the dealers too. Speaking to a couple of Additional Commissioner(s), Jt. Commissioner(s) and certain other officers too regarding the logic behind bringing certain of this circulars to force, these officers themselves are not able to understand the logic behind the same and they too claim it being very much illogical.

The list of such illogical circulars are as follows -

(1). The Government of Maharashtra vide notification no. /1507/CR 17/Taxation 1 dated 31/10/07 and No. VAT/1507/CR 94/Taxation 1 dated 14/03/08 made certain amendments to the VAT Rules changing the periodicity of filing of returns based on the tax liability discharged by a dealer in the previous financial year. For 2008-09, the department as well as the dealers followed the said notification and filed the returns as per the notification as well. The same system to adopt the periodicity for filing of the returns was followed by all the dealer until Mr. Bhatia came out with a circular mid-way the financial year, i.e. in October-2009 making it mandatory to follow the periodicity decided by his system of Mahavikas, which differed from what had been notified. Failure to follow the said circular, Mr. Bhatia ordered all of his officers to send notices as well as penalty orders of Rs. 5,000/- which were not appealable. Only those dealers who were provided with notices and penalty orders were able to file their revised returns and produce a copy of the same before the concerned officer with a request to rectify the penalty order, which means the officers were provided with the powers to rectify the penalty orders, rectifying the same to zero, but not cancellation of such penalty orders.

Dealers who were not provided with such notices and who were not able to determine their new periodicity for filing the returns as per the circular are not penalized for not revising their returns. This has caused plenty of paper work and wastage of the same too. Not only it has caused wastage of such paperwork, but precious time and energy of all the dealers, tax practitioners as well as the concerned officers, right from a peon of the officer, to the officer himself. Please try to imagine the number of man-hours which has got wasted in this whole process.

Most of the officers in the returns branch claim, that the salary being paid to them is simply for sending notices, penalty orders and canceling the same.


(2). Mr. Bhatia also undertook the herculean task of changing the format of VAT Audit Report in Form 704 for the FY 2008-09 onwards. Each dealer must get their books audited as per the provisions of the VAT Audit and also submit their VAT Audit Report in Form 704 before the end of 10 months from the end of the said F.Y. period. Hence, last date for submission of VAT Audit Report in the new format of Form 704 was to be submitted before 31st of Jan-2010. But, subsequently, Mr. Bhatia and his team who had undertaken the herculean task of changing the entire format, could not do so until Nov'2009 when a draft format was presented before various members of the various lobby such as the chartered accountants, tax practitioners, dealers, advocates, etc. who in turn suggested for nearly 2 months to carry out necessary changes to the form so as to ease the filing up of the data in the new format.

Finally, the new format of Form 704 was available to all the dealers / vat auditors in 1st week of January, i.e. just a few days before the due date for filing of the VAT Audit Report. Mr. Bhatia failed to recognize that  there are many vat auditors who have to conduct the vat audit for more than 80 - 100 of clients and providing the new format in which the data was to be collected from each dealer and submitting the same in the new form 704 was not a weeks time game. For the dealers to prepare the data as per the new format took not less than a week's time and for an auditor to collect the data from his client, feed the same in the new form 704 and upload the same to the department, took nearly 2-3 days.

Realising the time spent for the above process, Mr. Bhatia came out with a circular in the last week of Jan, giving an extension of time for 2 months, i.e. 31st march.

Now, the dealers and the tax practitioners as well as the chartered accountants were burdened with not only the deadline for filing the VAT Audit Report, but also filing revised returns as per the circular presented by Mr. Bhatia.

Mr. Bhatia has failed to understand, that when he himself has failed to provide the new format before time, or delayed the same by nearly 9 months form the end of the Financial period, simply 2 months of extension cannot be worked out for filing the VAT Audit Report by the Auditors.

(3) In october-2009, Mr. Bhatia came out with a circular stating that a statement of submission of the VAT Audit Report has to be attached to Part 1 and Balance Sheet of a dealer while making manual submission of VAT Audit Report to the department.

This statement states that the dealer holding a vat tin no. has authorised to conduct vat audit report for the said financial period and that a copy of the vat audit report was provided to the dealer.

The statement also states that the dealer has to acknowledge the online submission of the VAT Audit Report has been done by the dealer himself and not by any1 else.

Mr. Bhatia in unaware that the dealer is never been educated or is least interested to know the process of filing his returns as well as online submission of his vat audit report. The Dealer himself never submits even his returns neither the audit report. Under such a circumstances, how can a dealer testify that the vat audit report has been submitted online by him and not any other person.

Mr. Bhatia further more fails to understand that the acknowledgment which is generated after online submission of the vat audit report for a dealer, such an acknowledgment is to be signed, not only by the vat auditor, but also by the dealer.

Doesnt it imply that the dealer has given authority to the auditor to conduct and submit online as well as manually the vat audit report.

In the absence of such a statement of submission of vat audit report being attached with the audit report for manual submission, the officers are directed by Mr. Bhatia not to accept such an audit report and not even deny in writing the acceptance of the same.

For such a statement of submission of the vat audit report, there is no provision or rule prevailing in the VAT act or rules and still Mr. Bhatia wants to follow his circulars forcefully.


(4).  A month back or so, a huge Refund scam from palghar district was brought to the light of the entire nation, where the officers of the department at palghar were involved in processing and passing on the refunds to certain dealers worth more than 25 crores where half of the amount of such refund to a dealer was shared amongst the offices involved. Before this scam would come to the knowledge of Mr. Bhatia, a couple of the officers from palghar went absconding. When the scam was brought to the knowledge of Mr. Bhatia, his team contacted all such dealers and forced them to deposit the amount of refund provided to them by those erring officers failure to do so would result into criminal action being taken against them.

Along with this, Mr. Bhatia came out with departmental circular asking all the officers of the refund branch not to process any refunds to any dealers whose matter was pending or was on a finalization stage. Dealers  who have genuine refund and whose application has been under process for the last 2 yrs or more got stuck up for the said circular.

When Mr. Bhatia took his charge in the department and when certain senior practitioners went to felicitate Mr. Bhatia for being the new commissioner, Mr. Bhatia bluntly attributed the word "CHORS" to the dealers community and said, that for such kind of dealers he would make a rough path of success for them. But Mr. Bhatia failed to observe that such kind of officers were present on his said too.

When such big scams take place, generally it is the commissioner who has to resign and the new commissioner who walks in to take charge of the vacant post orders for a departmental inquiry. But no such change has taken place. It has been more than a month that Mr. Bhatia has been educated about such a scam, but no action for whatsoever reason has been taken against such officers except for transfer orders for such officer. But a very well planned action against the dealer have taken place forcing them to deposit the amount of refund wrongfully awarded to them. Why the officers involved in the scam are not forced to deposit the amount with the treasury making up to the loss of the department ? What is the personal intention of Mr. Bhatia in not taking coercive action against such officers.

There are certain officers against whom cases for corruption are still pending, but such officers are given posts in different areas simply because, when such officers are suspended from their duty, salary was still being paid to them for no reason. Only for the reason that the salary was being paid to such suspended officers without any work being done by them, they are taken back on duty.

No officer form any department is allowed to join his duty unless his suspension orders are taken back or ordered by the courts to cancel the suspension orders.

Sir, you would appreciate, that i want to cut short the list of complaints against Mr. Bhatia only for saving your precious time. But trust me, there are plenty of dealers and tax practitioners who wants to make genuine complaints regarding such irrational behaviors of Mr. Bhatia but are unaware whom to uproch and unless and until someone holding a superior post to Mr. Bhatia takes action against him, he shall continue to dictate his terms to a huge mass thereby annoying and wasting precious time of the dealers, tax practitioners as well as the officers of the department.

Thanking you in anticipation.

Ankit B. Shah

B.Com, LL.B
9867590359
9769113359