Why can’t departmental adjudicators decide the case immediately after hearing – on the same day - when Tribunals and Courts can do it?
While referring to the Board’s circular No. 80/2005 – Service Tax suggesting that orders should normally be issued within a month of the date of completion of the personal hearing, DDT 178 on 12.8.2005 had asked, “Incidentally why can’t departmental adjudicators decide the case immediately after hearing – on the same day when Tribunals and Courts can do it?”
An officer was quick to point out,
When Officers are expected to attend various works apart from adjudication, passing of orders on the same day of hearing is next to impossibility and in no way they could be treated on par with Tribunals and Courts.
Thank you, Sir for your quick reaction, but Commissioner (Appeals) does not have any other work other than passing orders. No Commissioner (Appeals) ever passes an order immediately after hearing the appeal. Why?
The institution of Commissioner (Appeals) needs a complete overhaul. First of all his office should be like a courtroom open to the public. Similarly when executive officers hear cases, they should sit in a court room open to the public. Let the department also be properly represented in these hearings preferably by the officer who passed the order or the one who investigated the case. If it is not possible to dictate the order in the open court, at least the operative part of the order can be pronounced in the open court and recorded. This will eliminate all chances of manoeuvres and management in adjudications – at least to a large extent.
Reading is not a favourite pastime with many adjudicators and most of their orders are written by Inspectors and Superintendents who are not present during the hearings and so they simply do not know what happened during the hearing. And when the order is put up for signature, the adjudicator does not remember what happened during the personal hearing. So even in the rare cases when the adjudicating officer is convinced about the case during the hearing, this conviction is not found in the ultimate order, because of the gap.
And if the order is passed immediately, most of the post hearing operations (sleazy) can be avoided.