Why Commissioners are not able to pass Adjudication Orders?
WE rarely find a Commissioner giving an adjudication order in favour of the assessee. Why then the delay and huge pendency of orders? There are Commissioners who are yet to deliver orders for cases where the personal hearing was held more than a year ago. Will they remember anything of what was said in the PH? For them, it is not relevant in any case. The whole exercise is a big farce. Many of them don't read the Show Cause Notices they sign, they don't listen to the submissions at the time of personal hearing and they don't sign for months together the draft orders put up by their superintendents, worried whether some part of the demand is left out. Commissioners really don't have any work more important than adjudication, but unfortunately they don't have time for adjudication! They have to send innumerable reports to the Board, all their time is taken up in meetings - most of which are to discuss the size of the samosas to be served during the visit of the Member or other dignitaries who frequently descend on them causing huge burden on time and money.
The Board need not worry about posting Commissioners (Adjudication) - they should simply divest all executive Commissioners with more than ten cases pending, of their executive charge and make them Commissioners exclusively for adjudication. The regular work of the Commissionerate can be handed over to the senior Additional Commissioner and these Commissioners should be asked to clear all their pending adjudication work before they can exercise their powers as executive Commissioners. It has been proved beyond doubt that Commissionerates without regular Commissioners have surpassed their revenue targets and heavens have not fallen because there was no Commissioner. Any Commissioner who does not pass an order within ten days of personal hearing should be compulsorily transferred to Timbuktu and no request should be entertained from him for a transfer for three years.
If the Board is really serious, they can get the pendency cleared in the next three months, but if the Board's letter to the Chief Commissioners is another routine joke, which it will be taken as, adjudication will pile up and one day the whole system will crash under its own weight and the Himalayan Tsunami will leave no relief options.
CBEC F.No. C-30013/19/2012-Ad.IVA/Ad.II, Dated June 25, 2013