Effect of Union Budget and Finance Bill 2021 on law and justice: "Faceless" Income Tax Appellate Tribunals, decreased allocation for eCourts

The Union Budget 2021 was introduced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament on Monday. .In this article, we take a look at the financial resources allocated for the field of law and justice as compared to the expenditure allocated in last year's budget. We also mention the move to make Income Tax Appellate Tribunals "faceless", as envisaged under the Finance Bill, 2021..In Budget 2021, the Union Ministry of Law and Justice has been allocated a total of Rs. 3,229.94 crore. This is divided into Rs. 2,645.82 for Law & Justice; Rs. 334.96 for the Supreme Court; and Rs. 249.16 for the Election Commission..Let us take a look at the budgetary allocation under each head and sub-headings under those heads..Law and Justice.The estimated outlay for infrastructure facilities for the judiciary this year is Rs. 784 crore. This is up from Rs. 762 crore allocated during last year's budget..The National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms has seen a decrease in budgetary allocation from last year. Phase II of the e-Courts project, which aims to achieve digitisation of courts across the country, has been allocated only Rs 98.82 crore, compared to Rs. 250 crore allocated last year..The Action Research and Studies on Judicial Reforms project under the National Mission has not been allocated any funds this year. This project was set up to render financial assistance to institutions working in the field of justice delivery, legal education and research and judicial reforms for undertaking action research/revolution/monitoring studies, organizing seminars/conferences etc. Under this scheme, research on varied topics was commissioned from law schools like National Law School of India University (NLSIU) Bangalore, National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR) Hyderabad, and other NLUs, as well as civil society organisations like DAKSH and Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.Instead, an amount of Rs. 40 crore has been allocated for the Designing Innovative Solutions for Holistic Access to Justice in India (DISHA) project. This scheme is aimed at increasing access to justice in the North-East, Jammu & Kashmir and other regions in India, and comprises of three programmes - Tele Law, Nyaya Bandhu and Nyaya Mitra. Also under this head is expenditure for special courts for Members of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies..Another significant change is the increase in budgetary allocation for tax tribunals from Rs. 172.9 crore last year to 219.3 crore in Budget 2021. .Other autonomous bodies like the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA), National Judicial Academy (NJA) and Indian Law Institute (ILI) receive the same allocation as last year (Rs. 100 crore, Rs. 11 crore, and Rs. 3 crore respectively).An addition to this is Institute of Constitutional and Parliamentary Studies, which is affiliated to the Haryana Vidhan Sabha (Rs. 1.5 crore)..Supreme Court.The budgetary allocation for the Supreme Court this year is up from Rs. 308.61 crore last year to Rs. 334.96 crore this year. These funds are used for administrative and other expenditure of the Supreme Court of India. Salaries and travel expenses of judges, staff and officers of the Registry and the canteen, security, expenditure on stationery, office equipment, security equipment, maintenance of CCTV and printing of Annual Report of the Supreme Court are all covered by these funds..The Finance Bill, 2021, introduced along with the Union Budget, has envisioned a change in the functioning of Income Tax Appellate Tribunals. Sitharaman said in her Budget Speech that all communication between the Tribunal and appellants before it shall be electronic, thus rendering the procedure "faceless".Section 255 of the Income Tax Act, which deals with these tribunals, is sought to be amended thus:“(7) The Central Government may make a scheme, by notification in the Official Gazette, for the purposes of disposal of appeals by the Appellate Tribunal so as to impart greater efficiency, transparency and accountability by(a) eliminating the interface between the Appellate Tribunal and parties to the appeal in the course of appellate proceedings to the extent technologically feasible; (b) optimising utilisation of the resources through economies of scale and functional specialisation; (c) introducing an appellate system with dynamic jurisdiction."Further, sub-section (8) aims to allow the Central government to direct that any of the provisions of this Act shall not apply to such scheme. No such direction shall be issued after the March 31, 2023..Other proposed changes in the realm of income tax include:Exemption from filing income tax returns for senior citizens (75 years and above) who only have pension and interest income.Reducing time limit for reopening of income tax assessmentConstitution of a Dispute Resolution Committee for small tax payersIncrease in limit for tax audit for persons who carry out 95% of their transactions digitally.[Read the Finance Bill 2021]