In a major cleansing operation of the 20 Income-Tax Appellate Tribunals (ITAT) spread
across the country, which were dogged in various controversies for several
months, Law Minister Salman Khursheed removed its President.
In a virtual coup, he showed the
door to president G E Veerbhadrappa and appointed H L Karwa as the new President
in his place. Never before in the history, such a major crack down took place
in the most-powerful Income Tax appellate bodies.
In a first, Salman Khurshid also
decided to supersede five senior ITAT vice
presidents and appointed a junior H L Karwa as president. It is learnt that Karwa was chosen by the
Minister to head the ITAT panels due to his impeccable track record and
integrity.
The ITAT tribunals were in one
controversy and the other during the past few months and more than 20 of its members
came under the CBI inquiry for writing favourable judgments for corporate
houses. These judgments caused a loss to the exchequer for thousands of crores
and all such cases are under review.
G E Veerbhadrappa who was President
for several years was shown the door as he sat over the “corrupt ITAT regime.
Surprisingly, of the five Vice Presidents superseded, some of them are under
CBI investigation.
Salman Khurshid had cleared CBI
probe against 20-odd members of the ITAT including a few vice presidents also.
Five vice presidents superceded are D
Manmohan, Gopal Das Agrawal, G C Gupta, O K Narayanan and N
Bharathvaja Sankar. These 20-odd members including vice presidents are stationed
in Mumbai, Ahemdabad, Delhi and elsewhere.
Incidentally, Karwa hails from
Himachal and has served as assistant advocate general of the state during 1992-94
before he became a judicial member in 1995 at the ITAT. He was posted as Vice
President at the Lucknow bench of the ITAT and moved to Chandigarh before being elevated as President in a
mid-night coup
