The income tax department is creating an online repository to identify high tax demand cases for fast-track disposal and to identify frivolous appeals, according to a report in Business Line.
 
The National Judicial Refernce System (NJRS) will be mammoth database of the litigation history of tax-payers of the country. The electronic database will replace the manual management of appeals. NRJS, thus, will allow tax officials to access case histories and judgments on tax-related matters at the click of a button.
 
IL&FS Technologies and national Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) will be implementing the project for the first five years, IT officials told the newspaper.
 
While NSDL has partnered with Skorydov Systems, IL&FS is jointly bidding with Taxmann Technologies for the Rs 50-crore project, they said. The implementation agency will have the overall responsibility to design, develop, test and implement the core NJRS application.  About 66,297 direct tax cases are currently pending with the appellate tribunal, various high courts and the supreme court, the newspaper reported citing the department’s data.
 
Disputes hold up collections until the appeals are disposed of. “The NJRS will give the IT assessing officer ‘dashboard alerts’ to inform him on high demand cases that are locked for appeals. Early disposal of such appeals would result in efficient tax collections,” a tax expert told the newspaper.
 
The disputed tax raised but not realised totalled to a whopping Rs 2,08,371 crore last year.
 
The NJRS would have two components — appeals repository & management system (ARMS) and the judicial research & reference system (JRRS). ARMS will function as the online repository of all pending appeals and while JRRS will contain judicial orders of decided cases.