An analysis of cases decided in favour of assessee and in favour of revenue.

An analysis of cases decided in favour of assessee and in favour of revenue.

An interesting analysis is made by learned author with help of search in different manners available on this website that is https://www.taxtmi.com

Cases on all laws:

Cases on all laws include revenue / tax cases as well as nonrevenue cases reported on this website for various laws. Therefore, result for search for in favour of assessee and revenue will not cover nonrevenue cases.

In favour of assessee / revenue- separate search is made for all laws and all courts and also court wise and main tax/ revenue law wise.

Ratio is worked out for number of revenue won cases against assessee won cases. Therefore, ratio for assessee won is kept as 1.

Except in case of Advance Ruling Authority (ARA) for GST and Appellate authority for Advance Ruling AAAR for GST ratio for revenue won cases is less than one.

Revenue won cases are also expressed in terms of percentage of total.

Practical aspects and ground realities:

Cases before Tribunal are generally represented by one Departmental Representative may be a Senior DR or Junior DR. In some lengthy cases and involving higher revenue implications more than one DR can represent, some times private counsels can also be engaged. But by and large we can say that the officers of concerned department represent before the tribunal.

On behalf of assessee one or more counsels are engaged depending on length and tax amount involved and seriousness of issues.

Before High Court

On behalf of revenue multiple counsels are engaged. Generally AOR and one or two or more standing counsels are engaged.

On behalf of assessee also usually AOR and one counsel is engaged and some times more counsels are also engaged, particularly in cases of companies.

In individuals/ non corporate tax cases many cases are not at all represented by any advocate in case appeal is filed by revenue. In case of appeal filed by assessee representation is not very strong.

Before, the Supreme Court generally revenue engage large number of senior advocates, including SG or addl. SG and other senior counsels.

Assessee is many times not represented in case of appeal of revenue. In other cases also generally representation of assessee is weaker than that of revenue.

From above analysis we find that in overall analysis number of cases won by assessee are more than won by revenue. However, percentage of cases won by government goes up as we move to higher courts though they are still less than cases won by assessee.

For private sector companies assesses author choose to search with name of tata. This is for the reason that TATA word is included in name of many of TATA group companies. Furthermore, in case of TATA group we are sure that they do not indulge into frivolous litigation themselves but off course they reasonably contest litigation initiated by government departments.

In case of TATA companies also we find that success percentage of revenue increases with every move towards higher Courts as can be observed in the data found in analysis given in the table including for all matters and TATA group as well.

It is general feeling that advance ruling authority including appellate advance ruling authority attempts to render ruling in favour of revenue. The data analysed in the table about GST AAR also indicate this aspect.

The analysis also suggest that "Weight of counsel" before a bench of court matters.

"Weight of counsel" before a bench of court can practically be described as persuasiveness, professional standing, and legal authority, fairness in representation and assistance rendered to the Court by even citing and distinguishing any precedence which is against his clients, that an advocate's arguments command during a hearing.

Though all lawyers have to follow and are bound by the same procedural rules, a judge or bench often gives varying "weight" to a counsel's presentations based on their credibility, expertise, fairness, and strict adherence to true facts.

From analysis in the table, and with practical memory recall from reading of judgments we can also say that there is substance in practical and ground reality that 'weight of counsel' before a bench of court makes a difference. This is possible reason that performance of revenue in litigation is seen improving with advancement of litigation before further higher courts that is Tribunal to High Court and then to the Supreme Court. In this process, we find ground reality that private litigant is generally unable to cope up with weight put on by counsels of revenue - by seniority, government backing, and usually larger team of advocates.

This also indicate towards truth in public feeling, and grapevine that it is difficult to get justice by poor people (the term poor is relative term amongst litigants against each other).