Four New Members Of CBDT Waiting For Work Responsibilities

On July 6, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had named four senior officers of the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) - Income Tax cadre - as CBDT members, filling up all vacant posts after a delay of more than a year.

The four members appointed were: Pravin Kumar and Harinder Bir Singh Gil from the 1987 batch, and Sanjay Kumar Verma and Ravi Agrawal from the 1988 batch.

 

For more than a year, the seven-member CBDT board had just three officers – a chairman and two members - who handled the different verticals on an additional charge basis.

 

CBDT Chairman Nitin Gupta holds the additional charge of the key assignment of Member (Investigation), which controls the Director General of Income Tax’s Investigation wings across the country.

Whether Gupta, who is scheduled to retire next month, would get an extension or be transferred to another powerful agency, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), where its incumbent is on extension until mid-September, remains to be seen.

The Supreme Court has allowed the ED Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra to continue only until September 15.

The CBDT chief is not just one of the contenders, but a frontrunner for the coveted post to helm the ED, which probes cases as varied as money laundering and finance to terrorism and anti-national activities.

“If Gupta moves to the ED, then, in all likelihood, Pragya Sahay Saksena will become the chairperson of the board,” a senior income tax officer told The Secretariat.

 

Among the three members, Subashree Anantkrishnan holds the additional charges of Member (Administration & Faceless Scheme) and Member (Tax Payer Services), besides her substantive assignment as the Member (Audit and Judicial).

Saksena holds the additional charge of Member (Income Tax & Revenue), besides her own responsibility of Member (Legislation and Systems).

The same work order continues even today.

It would be interesting to see if Saksena would retain the additional charge of Member (Investigation) or delink it from the responsibility of the chairperson and allocate it to a new member, the senior income tax officer, who did not wish to be named, added.