Backdating of Adjudication Orders - A Routine Affair in CBEC?
IN the above para, we quoted a High Court order, which stated, “There is also the danger that the adjudicating authority may backdate an order. Adjudicating authorities are not supposed to behave in this manner and are presumed to function within the boundaries of law but these things can happen.”
This is a routine practice in CBEC. Adjudicating Officers never give the correct figures about their orders. They will routinely show orders as having been passed, when they have not written the Adjudication orders, assured that they will never be questioned because their bosses are worse culprits. Finally when these officers are transferred, there is a mad rush to prepare orders, which they have already reported as delivered!
You will always find that there is a gap of three to four months between the date of the order and the date of delivery of the order to the assessee. If you have delivered an order and signed it, there is no reason for you to keep that order in your file for three to four months.
It is clear to everyone that the order had been signed with a backdate ! And it is not the trait of the corrupt officers – the honest officers are more prone to this kind of fraud than the corrupt ones.
Signing the Adjudication Order with a backdate is a common phenomenon/fraud in the Department that everybody accepts it as the right path.
The Chief Commissioners who need not pass Adjudication Orders can set right this fraud. They can direct that a copy of every Adjudication Order should be delivered to the CC's Office within 24 hours of its alleged delivery! The whole system will fall in place – nobody will pass a backdated order!