Prime Minister Narendra Modi may take an urgent call that pertains to the pending promomotion of 1982 batch IRS (Income Tax) from Principal Commissioner of Income Tax (PCIT) to Chief Commissioner of Income Tax (CCIT). Reportedly, Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) shot down a crucial proposal to fill the vacancies for CCIT on October 18. This could easily derail the IT department's efforts to enroll one crore of new taxpayers this year. As many as 31 out of 91 posts of CCIT are lying vacant for a year. These posts could have been easily filled by officers from the 1981 batch had a case from this batch not been pending in the Delhi High Court. While the case is to be heard on November 5 again, the Court has earlier allowed the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to go ahead with filling the pending vacancies with 1982 batch officers. To facilitate the filling of vacancies, the Delhi HC had also exempted the 1982-84 batches from the mandatory regulation of "one-year residency period in the rank of PCIT" to become CCIT. Following the court-granted exemption, the Department of Revenue and the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) permitted the CBDT to fill 2/3rd vacancies for CCIT. Accordingly, the UPSC conducted the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) formalities on September 14 and the list of selected officers was sent to the ACC for ratification. But the ACC declined on September 18 to ratify the proposal saying that "the DoPT should not have granted the exemption." This has come as a bolt from the blue for the CBDT that has a total of 32 officers from the 1982 batch. Of this, only 26 are available for filling the vacancies as two of these officers will retire this month and four are on deputation.