Notification Fiasco - Who is responsible - CBEC Clarifies. No Legal Force for Notifications in CBEC website
PLEASE go to DDT 1928 - 27.08.2012 - Notification fiasco - Who is responsible for the confusion? Madam Chairman, will you stop this smuggling in notifications? wherein it was pointed out that Sl. No. 148 (B) of Notification 12/2012 - Cus had a condition "5" originally and it went missing in CBEC website later. DDT had said, "The CBEC has a new Chairman - a dynamic lady. Will she try to put an end to this smuggling of laws by the highest body? It is perfectly human to make a mistake (or even hundreds of them as our Board usually does), but the Board should be mature enough to admit the mistakes and correct them instead of smuggling in corrections and confusing the assessees, publishers, officers and even the judiciary".
Now, the Board has clarified the issue. In a letter to us, the Director (TRU) in CBEC informs,
With reference to the report captioned, "Notification fiasco - Who is responsible for the confusion?" dated 27-08-2012 published on your website, I am directed to provide the following clarification:
(1) Corrections to the legal text of a notification are invariably made either by way of a corrigendum or an amendment notification - both of which are duly displayed on the CBEC website (www.cbec.gov.in) and published in the official gazette. There is no question of "smuggling" corrections or carrying them out "secretly" as alleged in the report.
(2) In the case of the entry at S.No. 148(B) of notification no. 12/2012-Customs dated 17-03-2012 the correct legal position is that the condition no.5 is applicable. That being so, there is no amendment notification or corrigendum to substitute it with "-". However owing to a typographical error in the electronic version of the notification (reflecting the updated position as 30-05-2012), the relevant entry under column (6) indicated a "-" at the time the aforesaid report appeared. This has now been corrected. The copy published on the website is for trade facilitation and does not have any legal force.
First of all, we are grateful to the Board for this clarification. At least some cobweb of confusion is removed. But it is a great typographical error that in the beginning, in the notification carried in the website, there was this condition and while updating, the condition became a dash"-"! Why should anyone tinker with this entry at all? Obviously somebody had changed that "5" to a "-", and why should that somebody do that? Anyway, Board is above board and let us leave it as a typographical wonder!
Now, this clarification raises a larger issue - the notifications published in the website have no legal force! So, does the Board want everyone to get a copy of the gazette? And where are gazette copies available? Now, routinely these notifications are downloaded from the department's website and produced before courts and tribunals and are being accepted also. When they have no legal force, what is the use of carrying them in the site? And what is the trade facilitation in carrying a notification with errors? If the notifications carried in the official website are not to be relied upon, why can't the Board carry copies of the gazette? Will the Board clarify as to where one can get an authentic certified copy of a notification, which will have legal force? Getting a copy of the gazette is almost impossible and so Board should arrange some way by which a legal copy is made available to the public.
We are grateful to the Board for its clarification - a response from the Government is always gratifying.