MULTAN: The Lahore High Court (LHC) Multan Bench has ruled that a controversial tax dispute should be referred back to the Appellate Tribunal Inland Revenue (ATIR) for adjudication, rather than being decided directly by the court.
The case Ibrar Iqbal vs. Commissioner Inland Revenue (Appeals-Sahiwal) (ITR No. 28/2025) revolved around an order dated Jan 23, 2025, which the applicant had sought to challenge before the High Court under Section 133 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001.
However, during the proceedings on Sept 15, counsel for the applicant-department argued though his counsel Furqan Ahmad Khan that the legal landscape had shifted. With Section 126A scrapped and amendments introduced in Section 133, orders of the Commissioner (Appeals) now fall squarely under the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, not the High Court.
The division bench, comprising Justice Muhammad Raza Qureshi and Justice Anwaar Hussain, agreed. The impugned order is to be assailed before the Tribunal and not before this Court, the judges observed, underlining that the applicant had approached the wrong forum.
In an additional relief to the applicant, the bench also directed the return of court fees, citing that no adjudication on merits had taken place. The judges relied on a precedent set in Safdar Ali Channa v. Commissioner Inland Revenue (Appeals-IV), LTO Islamabad, where similar grounds were upheld.
Legal observers note that the ruling highlights the growing importance of the ATIR in adjudicating income tax disputes following the recent statutory changes. It also signals that taxpayers and revenue authorities alike must now re-route their grievances through the Tribunal before knocking on the doors of the High Court.
For the applicant, however, the battle is far from over the matter now heads to the Tribunal, where the real test of law and evidence awaits.