Four out of 12 offices have no Ombudsmen since November 2013. Mumbai has no ombudsman for 4 months and Delhi has a part-time one visiting from Chandigarh

Did you get Income Tax (IT) refund? If not, you can file a complaint with IT Ombudsman. But do you know if the IT Ombudsman of your region is actually in office or the post is lying vacant? IT Ombudsman is an independent body set up by the government. They are appointed from the ranks of former IT officials or officials from the Indian Revenue Service (IRS). These officers have been empowered to settle grievances and they can take up matters to the highest authority. They act as an arbitrator and are independent of the jurisdiction of the IT Department.
 

But the IT Ombudsman office in Mumbai has backlog of pending cases because the Ombudsman is missing since 8 November 2013. There are 10-12 cases coming in daily to the office and hence it can be estimated that there can be over 1000 pending cases. The office has no idea when the new Ombudsman will be appointed and expects no one to take charge till June 2014 due to pending general elections. Does consumer redressal go for a toss till elections are over?
 

Pune Ombudsman is the link officer who had recently visited Mumbai Ombudsman office to give guidance, but there is no one present to make decisions unless there is some critical pending case. Pune Ombudsman office itself is vacant as per IT website. But, the position got filled by GG Shukla who was earlier deputed at Kochi Ombudsman office. This information is not updated on the IT website. In fact, most of the Ombudsman related data is obsolete on the webpage.
 

Please see - http://www.incometaxindiapr.gov.in/incometaxindiacr/home.jsp?p1=ombudsman_contacts and http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/KnowYourOmbudsman.asp
 

Even major region like Delhi has no full-time Ombudsman. It has to satisfy itself with Chandigarh Ombudsman visiting part-time. But, the Chandigarh Ombudsman probably has his hands full by serving complaints from Chandigarh as well as Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and J&K.
 

Surprisingly, there is no Ombudsman since November 2013 in the offices of Kanpur (covering UP and Uttarakhand), Hyderabad (covering Andhra Pradesh) and Ahmedabad (covering Rajasthan, Gujarat, Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli). Did the Ombudsmen serving these offices all retire at the same time? Will there possibly be no replacement till election is over (June 2014)?
 

The IT website has completely outdated information about serving Ombudsman in the offices. We got correct information (in table) after calling all the 12 IT Ombudsman offices in India. We are putting out the data we have collected which would be useful for the readers.
 

Income Tax Ombudsman data across all the 12 offices

The government of India has appointed Ombudsmen at various locations to look into the grievances of taxpayers if the normal system does not respond. They handle a host of grievances other than IT refunds. These include interest waiver petitions, giving effect to appellate orders, rectification of applications, release of seized books of accounts, allotment of PAN, and issue of PAN cards, credit of tax paid etc.
 

Under the current rules, before you approach the Ombudsman, you should have submitted a written complaint with your IT officer. If you feel that the complaint has not been addressed to your complete satisfaction, or if the officer rejects your complaint, or if no reply is received within 30 days of writing the complaint, only then should the issue be raised to Ombudsman. It is important to note that the complaint should be filed with the Ombudsman within one year, after the 30 day wait for a response from the IT officer.