DDT suggests that:-
1) The Commissioner (Appeals) should be de-linked from the department. Anyway several wings are going out of the Board and this is a good office that can and should go. The Commissioner(Appeals) may be placed under the CESTAT or under a Chief Commissioner(Appeals) with independent funds and functioning. Commissioners(Appeals) are often invited to meetings called for by Chief Commissioners to discuss revenue augmenting. There was a Commissioner who wrote a letter to the Chairman that a part of the credit for his good performance should go to the Commissioner(Appeals) who was consistently refusing to grant stay!
2) The Commissioner(Appeals) should hold court in an open room where advocates, consultants and others should be allowed to be present. The proceedings should be like in the Tribunal.
3) The Commissioner(Appeals) should pass his orders in open court.
4) The defending or appealing departmental officer should invariably be present in hearings before the Commissioner(Appeals) and should present his case.
5) Nobody should be posted as Commissioner(Appeals) against his will. This should be a post on selection by calling for willingness from prospective candidates. To attract good talent there should be strong incentives like better perks, an allowance equal to the salary, preference for selection to Tribunal etc,.
6) Once the Commissioner(Appeals) passes an order, he should have total administrative control over the officer against whose order the appellate order is passed. If the order is not implemented, the Commissioner (Appeals) should have power to punish the lower officer.
7) No person should be posted as Commissioner (Appeals) in a state in which he had worked in the preceding three years.
But the first and foremost step should be to fill up the vacant posts. Instead of arrears clearance drives, which only produce reports and not realisation, the department should drive for an adjudication and appeals clearance drive. To start with for every three hundred pending appeals, post a Commissioner as Commissioner (Appeals). All the Commissioners from the Commissionerates can be withdrawn for this job with an assurance that they will get their commissionerates back after they finish passing these three hundred appellate orders. May be in six moths we can liquidate the entire pendency of appeals. Adjudication is the only work of the officers, for which we can see the results – good or bad. Results of all other work are manipulated and misreported. For one year let us forget everything and concentrate on adjudication and appellate orders – at all levels.
But what will happen to revenue if the officers are busy in adjudication and not concentrating on revenue realisation, survey, reports and audits? The FM need not worry; Revenue will come in automatically and Sir, please be don’t be surprised if there is a huge increase in Revenue.