According to Kant, the assessees had enough time to avail themselves of the scheme and an extension would not benefit them in any way. The recent widening of the scheme by the Delhi high court also does not require any extensions, he added.

The Delhi high court had, in its judgment of November 17, widened the scope of the scheme by allowing even departmental appeals to come under Samadhan's ambit. The scope of `tax arrears' has also been extended to cover tax, penalty or interest under dispute in departmental appeals.

Kant was also of the opinion that the board does not want the revenue from the scheme to spill over into the next fiscal, which will happen if it is extended by a few months.

According to him, the response to thescheme began picking up in the second half of November and it has been much better in the first half of the current month.

In Mumbai alone around 220 assessees came under the scheme in the first 11 days of December. The disputed tax, penalty and interest in these cases is around Rs 170 crore.

The income-tax department, Mumbai, received around 600 applications from September 1, 1998 (when the scheme opened) till November 30, 1998, involving disputed tax, penalty and interest of around Rs 250 crore.

Till now, the department has raked in only around Rs 100 crore from the scheme. "One must also think of the Rs 350 crore which the department has written-off in favour of the assessees," said chief commissioner of income-tax-I, B Misra.

According him, the assessees should avail themselves of the scheme instead of picking holes in it. Asked why the revenue department is yet to award `samman' to the honest taxpayers while tax-evaders are showered with various disclosure schemes, Kant said that the governmentwould shortly notify the `samman' scheme for taxpayers.

"We took some time to reconcile the various demands of the taxpayers," he said, while adding that a set of modalities suiting every assessee has been finalised and a notification will be issued shortly.

Meanwhile, the revenue department is also going over-board to facilitate the assessees in filing the declarations under Samadhan scheme. The department has not only decided to keep the counters open upto mid-night on December 31 but also accept the declarations on Saturdays. The decision to the assessees once they file the declarations is also slated to be communicated within 24 hours.