Strange are ways of Board – Mystery shrouds a smuggled amendment.
ON September 15, the CBEC issued Circular No. 116 – Service Tax, captioned Leviability of service tax on construction of canals by Government agencies. The Circular was not available to the public till 25 th September, 2009. On 16 th September an assessee called DDT and informed us about the circular, about which we were not aware; but he was sure there was such a circular. The Circular was carried by the CBEC web site on 25 th September – we also carried it on the same day. Please see 25.09.2009.
The lobbyists who were trying for the clarification told us that this was not what they expected. We were not impressed – we thought that this kind of things does not happen.
But then on 6.10.2009, the CBEC web site changed the Circular. The Circular which was already there was changed – not an amendment, but a backdoor replacement. Now it looks as if the Circular dated 15.09.2009 which was carried on 25.09.2009 never existed.
Now the following questions arise:
1. Why the Circular dated 15.09.2009 was not made available to public till 25.09.2009?
2. Why was the Circular amended through the backdoor by replacing an existing circular without making an amendment?
3. What does the smuggled amendment try to convey?
4. What is fishy in the original Circular and its unofficial amendment?
Several websites are not even aware of this secret replacement and they still carry the old circular.
The field offices of Central Excise and the assessees are equally confused and the general opinion is that somebody tried to buy a clarification and somehow it did not succeed finally and so a clarification that does not clarify anything has come out in the form of a smuggled circular. If an assessee does this kind of things, he will be hauled up for fraud. But what if the Board does this?
Today the CBEC consists of a dream team, which is an all time best. But it is unfortunate that this is happening under the best possible Board.
CBEC should investigate this and find out how this could happen.
We asked one of our in-house experts to analyse this issue and this is what he has come up with.