According to the ministry, Samadhan has a `give-and-take' approach and does not favour a specific class of assessees. AIFTP has reiterated in its rejoinder that the focus of the Samadhan scheme has been changed from reducing litigation, as was announced by the finance minister, to a recovery scheme for tax arrears.

"The scheme has been drafted with the main objective of recovery of tax, the reduction of litigation is only an incidental consequential effect," the rejoinder adds. The ministry has rejected the appeal of the federation toallow even the assessees who have paid the taxes to come under the scheme by stating that in such instances the government will have to issue huge refunds. However, according to AIFTP, refund cases will be negligible as very few assessees make full payment of taxes till their appeals are finally disposed off.

The federation has urged the court to direct the finance ministry to find out the number of cases where the assessees had paid taxes while their cases were still under litigation.

The federation has also questioned the ministry's statement that there is no discrimination between the assessees, and that all are subjected to the identical process of tax collection.

According to All India Federation of Tax Practitioner, the Samadhan creates a palpable discrimination between the classes of people, one who is law abiding and the other who is not law abiding, by shutting its door to the former and welcoming the latter. The federation has relied on the case of RK Gard versus Union of India 133 ITR 239wherein the Supreme Court has observed that "the test in every such case would be not whether the provisions of the statute offered against morality but whether they are arbitrary and irrational having regard to all the facts and circumstances of the case".