MP Commercial Tax: Appellate Board Member Appointing Committee Sidelines CM’s Privilege of Opting

BHOPAL /Preferring unlawfully to a retired officer for appointing as accountant member in the Madhya Pradesh Commercial Tax Appellate Board (MPCTAB), the selection committee, without fulfilling the quorum, has not only defied the Chief Minister’s privilege of considering options by picking a single name but the negatory service record of the applicant has also been hidden by the Commissioner.

According to sources, the panel on 16 June selected the single name of the retired officer, Sudip Gupta as an accountant member for the MPCTAB and sent its decision to the government for the further approval of the Minister for Commercial Tax, Jagdish Devda and the CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan. While the committee should have finalized at least two names from the applicants’ list because the government had released an advertisement for a single post. The committee neglected the privilege of the CM because it should have left the options for the CM’s consideration.

Gupta’s selection has set off a major controversy and raised questions over the decision of the committee.

As per section 4 of the Madhya Pradesh VAT (Value Added Tax) Act 2002, it has been provisioned that the appointment of a member of the Appellate Board is made under the chairmanship of the chief secretary. The committee comprises the chairman of the MPCTAB and the principal secretary of Law as a member. The Principal Secretary of the Commercial Tax Department is the member secretary of the committee. The committee held the meeting hastily for appointing Gupta, without fulfilling its quorum in the absence of the MPCTAB chairman. The chairman post of the Appellate Board is lying vacant for a long time.
Gupta is considered deep close to the Commissioner of Commercial Tax, Raghvendra Singh. An efficient service record of the retired officer is to be mandatory to appoint as a member of the Appellate Board.

There are seven retired deputy commissioners, have applied for the post of a member of the MPCTAB, they are RK Tiwari, Sunil Mishra, SD Richharia, Sudhir Shrivastava, Meera Kumar and OP Pandey. The commissioner of Commercial Tax had sent the information to the government about the service records of the applicants. During the service, Gupta had been suspended for three years and he was under the scan of the Economic Offence Wing.

In the service records information which was sent by the commissioner to the government, the commissioner hid the depraved conduct of Gupta. Even he again sent the service records of the applicants on 7 June, just ahead of the meeting, to delete the ‘warning’ word from Gupta’s service record.

A complaint has been submitted to the minister, Devda in this regard. In the complaint, it has been demanded that the recent decision of the selection committee should not be recommended and a fresh meeting will be conducted after appointing the chairman of the MPCTAB so that the quorum of the committee could be fulfilled.
The sources said that the minister had not recommended the file to the CM yet.