The action of the Income Tax department to issue notice to the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman to reveal number of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes as on November 8, 2016 and also seeking data regarding account information, cash balances, and currency in hand (Herald dt 27.11.2016) though wicked, shocking and deplorable, is all perfect considering the powers vested in it by the Income Tax Act.
However, asking the Archdiocese to furnish the data in a day is not only arbitrary, capricious and illogical but a cruel joke played by the Income Tax authority who has sent the notice. It suffers from professional bankruptcy. As far as any statute is concerned there is always a reasonable period of time stipulated to furnish any information sought by the authority under the relevant statute. The so-called reasonable period can vary from the nature of information and the size of the organisation or institution from which the data is sought. Notwithstanding this, the minimum reasonable period can be fifteen days or one month or more.
Considering the size of the Archdiocese of Goa extending across 160 parishes, asking to furnish the data within a day is absolutely foolish and smells of vengeance and harassment to the Church; a surgical strike on the Catholic Church in Goa in the words of Fr Victor Ferrão (Herald dt 27.11.2016). It is like asking the most impossible.
Most of the Parish priests across Goa besides their normal ecclesiastical duties are stretching their precious time for the Eucharistic celebrations at the novena for the feast of Saint Francis Xavier at Old Goa to be held on 3rd December and it goes without saying that the data sought by the I-T department which involves voluminous and tedious compilation from across churches in Goa cannot be provided within a short span of time. The I-T department ought to take note of this and avoid acting cruel on the Church.
My request to the respectable Archdiocese is to seek time by making a simple letter to the I-T department. Concurrently the Archdiocese may like to write a letter to the Chairman of the CBDT (Central Board of Direct Taxes), the highest tax authority in India informing it about the arbitrary notice and the harassment by its department.
