Supreme Court (SC) on Forty-Four year old case and need for Vibrant system of Advance Ruling
Recently, Supreme Court delivered its verdict in a Forty-Four (44) year old pending case in case of National Co-operative Development Corporation.
While the interesting part of the judgment is the Two Postscripts penned down by Justice Kaul but let’s not directly jump to it. First let us briefly understand the issue involved and then understand the Postscripts.
The opening line of the decision – “Which pocket of the Government should be enriched has taken forty-four (44) years to decide – a case of what ought not to be!”
To appreciate the reason behind this line, let us understand the facts of the case:
- The taxpayer, National Co-operative Development Corporation (‘NCDC’) was established under the National Cooperative Development Corporation Act, 1962.
- The function of NCDC was to advance loans or grant subsidies to State Governments for financing cooperative societies and provide loans and grants directly to the national level and State level cooperative societies, on the guarantee of State Governments.
- For this purpose, NCDC was receiving the funding from the Central Government (‘CG’).
- So basically, NCDC was acting as an intermediary between the Central Government and State Government for the purpose of financing cooperative societies.
By this time, you must have understood the introductory line of SC – Which pocket of the government should be enriched has taken 44 years to decide!!
