Chairperson of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), GS Pannu has told ET Now that 53,000 appeals are pending in 63 ITAT benches located at 30 places across India. While he termed the level of pending appeals as “reasonable” in view of ITAT’s current strength, he pointed to an increase in use of technology and e-courts to reach out to ITAT benches which were facing paucity of members.

Calling for policy-level intervention to reduce tax litigation, Pannu said that zonal teams led by Vice Presidents of various benches are working on ways to expedite dispute resolution for the purpose of ease of doing business and ease of living for citizens.

Pointing to pendency of only around 8,000 appeals pending before ITAT Mumbai and hearing of appeals filed in 2021 already being heard by ITAT’s benches, Pannu stated that the tribunal is at a “comfortable level with respect to pendency of cases” as of now.

While ITAT doesn’t have a total figure on how much is the total amount in dispute as most of the pending cases are individual appeals, the tribunal is tailoring its policy of fixation of cases and bunching of similar appeals and questions of law as part of efforts to streamline its functioning.

ITAT is currently hearing appeals in non-metro cities within 6 months of their filing, and is trying to fix them for hearing in 12 to 18 months in metro cities. ITAT norms currently allow priority hearing on appeals filed by senior citizens and for assessments up to Rs 50 lakh.