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TaxTMI 
Litigation on behalf of Governments:
Litigation on behalf of governments, ministries, government departments are supposed to be initiated after detailed scrutiny of order against which appeal is intended to be filed and with approval of higher authorities and many times in consultation with standing or other senior counsels.
They are also supposed to scrutinise the order and take a decision on consideration of facts, circumstances, tax effect, and policies about litigation and its reduction.
We find cases of unmindful litigation initiated and carried up to the Supreme Court and then withdrawn or dismissed due to lack of merit, low tax effect, and other reasons.
Recent example is found in reported judgment at The Principal Commissioner of Income Tax – 23 Versus KSE Loan Trust. [2026 (4) TMI 746 - SC Order] Order and connected judgments of the honourable Supreme court and High Courts.
In this case, at the time of hearing before the Supreme Court it was informed that the appeal has been wrongly filed against wrong order, instead of the right order against which appeal was to be filed.
It is worth to note that both orders were of the same date. Therefore, it is not a case of old matter going out of sight.
Even if it be a case of two orders decided at different times, it is duty of concerned officers to examine past history of similar cases.
It is also worth to note that appeal was filed with petition for condonation of delay. Therefore, the petitioners had sufficient time to take proper action timely. The department is equipped with suitable human resources and information enable technologies and machineries like computers, own websites, mobile phones, e-mail facilities and required access to various related websites of Courts and Departments. Therefore, now-a-days, practically there should not be reasons like delay in movement of files from one officer to another or from one desk to other or simply said from here to there and then there to here.
This caused lot of time wastage of officers of the Supreme Court and honourable Judges and departmental authorities.
About counsels, it can be said that they caused wastage of national human resources, including their own time. Though they earned substantial fees but that should not be a reason to promote litigation. However, we feel that earning of fees is their primary consideration and therefore, there are so much un-necessary cases of litigation.
From order of the Supreme Court with highlights added:
ORDER
Diary No. 14239/2026
1. This special leave petition has been filed by the Revenue against the wrong order dated 05.02.2025, as we are informed that a separate order was passed on the very same day in relation to ITXA No. 2979/2018, in relation to which the present special leave petition has been filed.
2. The application for condonation of delay and the special leave petition are, accordingly, dismissed on that short ground, leaving it open to the Revenue to file an appeal against the appropriate order.
3. Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of.
Diary Nos. 11015/2026 [2025 (2) TMI 453 - BOMBAY HIGH COURT], 16154/2026 [2025 (4) TMI 1794 - BOMBAY HIGH COUR] and 18840/2026 [2025 (3) TMI 1642 - BOMBAY HIGH COURT]
1. Delay condoned.
2. Issue notice and tag with Civil Appeal No. 14783/2025, tilted 'Pr Commissioner of Income Tax 14 Mumbai Versus Premier Industrial Corporation Ltd. - 2025 (12) TMI 1814 - SC Order'.
3. Service shall be effected by all modes, including dasti.
Similarly author found a judgment whereby departments appeal was dismissed by honourable Calcutta High Court in the following case:
ORDER SHEET
ITAT/44/2026
IA NO: GA/1/2026, GA/2/2026
IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA
SPECIAL JURISDICTION (INCOME TAX)
ORIGINAL SIDE
PRINCIPAL COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX 2 KOLKATA
VS
NISHA BAHETI
BEFORE:
The Hon'ble JUSTICE RAJARSHI BHARADWAJ
AND
The Hon'ble JUSTICE UDAY KUMAR
Date: 25th March, 2026.
Appearance:
Mr. Shiv Shankar Banerjee, Adv.
Ms. Sukanya Dutta, Adv.
. . .for the appellant.
The Court: Heard learned counsel appearing for the appellant. No one appears for the respondent/assessee.
There is a delay of 117 days in filing the appeal. We are satisfied with the explanation offered for not preferring the appeal within time. Therefore, the delay is condoned. The application being GA/1/2026 is allowed.
Learned counsel for the appellant submits that the tax effect in this case is Rs.18,22,044/- which is below the tax limit as prescribed in the CBDT Circular No.9/2024 dated 17th September, 2024 and Circular No.5 of 2024 dated 15th March, 2024 but the case falls within the exceptional category under para 3.1(h)as per CBDT Circular No.5 of 2024 dated 15th March, 2024.
We have perused the application, the assessment order, appellate order of the learned Commissioner of Income Tax and the order of the learned Tribunal. We do not find any reason to entertain this appeal where the appellant has not clearly suggested which exceptional clause as read in para 3.1(h) as per CBDT Circular No.5 of 2024 dated 15th March, 2024 is applicable in the present appeal.
As such, this appeal and the connected application being GA/2/2026 are dismissed as the tax effect in this matter is below Rs. 2 crores.'
Unquote:
In this case we find that the counsels of revenue were not careful in preparing appeal as they missed the vital point of litigation that is the relevant clause of the Circular. Furthermore, at the time of hearing also Learned Counsels were unable to point out the same.
This clearly means that the counsels of revenue were not well prepared and they took the matter easily.
In this case also we find that the assessee was confident and she did not engage any counsel and there was not even AOR. Similarly in cases before the Supreme Court, discussed in this article we find that the assessee did not engage any counsel.
This also shows that revenue has filed appeal without any merit, as per understanding of counsels of assessee.
The related judgment of ITAT is reported as follows on this website:
Calcutta High Courts judgment is not yet found on this website. Contents as mentioned above in this article were taken by downloading from the website of Calcutta High Court from download link provided in said website.
This article is useful for litigation under any law, therefore, it is placed in category of OTHER TOPICS.