RAKESH KESHWANI vs ASSISTANT/DEPUTY COMMISSIONER INLAND REVENUE S — 2025 PTD 143 KARACHI-HIGH-COURT-SINDH

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RAKESH KESHWANI VS ASSISTANT/DEPUTY COMMISSIONER INLAND REVENUE S.131---Factual determination in tax matters---Appellate Tribunal Inland Revenue (Tribunal), responsibility / power of---Two different Benches of Tribunal---Same facts / issue---Identical verbatim order, passing of---Effect---Taxpayer filed Reference before the High Court against dismissal of his appeal by the Tribunal (on the point of limitation)---Validity---High Court, at the very outset, had noticed that, in the present case, impugned order from (three /relevant) paragraphs was verbatim same as another order previously passed by another Bench of the Tribunal in another appeal ('previous order of other Bench'), in respect of identical issue (limitation)---In the impugned order of the Tribunal (which incidentally was subsequent to the previous order of other Bench), identical words and facts, even observation relating to issue-in-hand, had been recorded as the ones recorded in previous order of other Bench---Therefore, such act of the Tribunal not only appeared to be very casual, but also depicted negligence in attending to the facts of a particular case---High Court sincerely believed that it was not an outcome of engaging some Artificial Intelligence 'AI' as otherwise there would be a serious question mark as to the accuracy as well as authenticity of such AI judgments, of which lately there was so much of discussion all around---Impugned order which appeared to be more of an unnecessarily hurried "cut and paste" approach---Two different Benches of Tribunal though were dealing with the same issue/fact, but an identical verbatim order was passed as if such order had been passed by the same Bench/Member; in fact, in reality it was not so---It did not appeal to a prudent mind that two different Benches /Members of the Tribunal, though dealing with same issue can pass a verbatim same order, and also commit the same mistake on facts in the same paragraph numbers as had been done by the earlier Bench---Impugned order was not sustainable as during earlier part of the day previous order of other Bench was already set aside, on the basis of which the impugned order had been passed---Thus, High Court set aside the impugned order and remanded the matter to the Tribunal to decide the issue of limitation afresh after calling proper comments and supporting documents from the concerned Commissioner; if the condonation application was granted, then the matter shall also be decided on merits as well---Questions were answered accordingly---Reference Application, was disposed of accordingly.

RAKESH KESHWANI vs ASSISTANT/DEPUTY COMMISSIONER INLAND REVENUE S — 2025 PTD 143 KARACHI-HIGH-COURT-SINDH

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