Why is CBEC not able to issue promotion orders of Chief Commissioners?
SOME 15 Commissioners are waiting with bated breath for that magical announcement of their promotion to the ultimate field job in CBEC - THE Chief Commissioner. Everything is cleared - the DPC is over; the ACC has cleared their names - now all that is to be done is for a Deputy Secretary to issue the promotion and posting orders - and that the CBEC is not able to do for the last ten days. What is the problem? There are vacancies and there are officers ready to occupy the vacant slots. But administration is not about simply filling in the vacant slots. There are manoeuvring games, fixers and shakers, obliging the powers that be and puzzling problems that have to be overcome before postings can be done. This time there is a tremendous pressure for posts in and around Delhi. All the Delhites who are now posted out of Delhi are out to seize their bastion back and unfortunately, not everybody can be accommodated. In the process, the promotion is getting delayed. Until the promoters come to a consensus, these promotions cannot take place. Even NACEN, Faridabad is in great demand - it is also a Delhi posting! (see ).
Many officers wonder how the CBEC is going to promote hundreds of officers under cadre restructuring if they cannot promote 15 Commissioners to the rank of Chief Commissioner. What right has the Board to deny the promotion to these officers who have all put in more than thirty years of service in the department? The whole work can be completed in two hours - if they want to! There has to be something terribly wrong if officers cleared by the Prime Minister of the country cannot be issued promotion orders for ten days.
Maybe it is time for the FM to call for the file and order on the spot promotion and posting. And if the CBEC is not able to sort out the settlement problems, the least it can do to the Chief Commissioners-in-waiting is to give them ‘in situ' promotions as they had done several times in the past. Already one of the Commissioners in the list has retired last month. How miserable he must have felt. Don't make their Diwali dark – please spread a little glitter of happiness and call them Chief Commissioners as a Diwali gift – you can do the posting later.
Recently in a service case - ( ), where an officer was not promoted to the IAS, the Supreme Court awarded damages and observed, "The award of damages is necessary also because, a message must go down that those who are responsible for administration of the State cannot trample upon the rights of others on the grounds which are unsustainable in law." The Supreme Court also held that it will be open to the State Government to recover these amounts from the then Commissioner of Commercial Tax, and/or whoever were the officers responsible for the non-consideration of the claim of both the appellants .
Recidivist and futile endeavours by Revenue for utopian perfection tends to undermine stability of law and impose wholly avoidable litigation costs on exchequer besides burdening docket of this Tribunal - Costs of Rs.1000/- payable to assessee for inflicting on it wholly unjustified litigative trauma
THE respondent was a Service Tax registrant for Stock Broking services. During audit for the period March 2005 to March 2007, Revenue assumed that the assessee had under declared its service tax liability to the extent of Rs.6,06,684/- on the alleged differential income received of Rs. 59,47,750/-.
The assessee responded pleading that the sub-brokers, operating under the assessee had remitted the applicable service tax in respect of transactions undertaken by them; that in terms of the guidelines/Regulations of SEBI, sub-brokers working under the principal Broker are required to route all transactions through the principal; that the entirety of disputed quantum of service tax due, on amounts received on transactions attributable to the assessee, is directly relatable to transactions of the sub-brokers and has been remitted either by the assessee or the sub-brokers; and there is no short remittance of tax.
The adjudicating authority critically examined the defence of the assessee and after making a detailed assessment of the material on record came to the conclusion that the lapse of the assessee is not intimating payments made by his sub-brokers in ST-3 returns was a mere technical flaw and no demand could be raised on the assessee on this count, since the resultant service tax was already remitted.
Nonetheless, he held that there is short remittance of a small amount of Rs.1,978/- on account of some arithmetical calculation and that in the absence of any bad faith or willful intent to make short payment of this amount, no case for imposition of any penalties leviable under sections 76 to 78 was made out. He confirmed this amount and directed the assessee to pay interest on the same u/s 75 of the FA, 1994.
Revenue went in appeal before the Commissioner(A) but he rejected the same and so they are before the CESTAT. While doing so, the lower appellate authority placed reliance on the LB decision in Vijay Sharma and Company vs. CCE - 2010-TIOL-1215-CESTAT-DEL-LB [which inter alia ruled that provisions of the Act do not accommodate double taxation; the scheme of service tax suggests only a single point taxation].
A quick glance at the appeal and the Bench commented that the same was a 'misconceived one'.
As for the merits of the appeal, the CESTAT observed -
"4. The grounds of appeal herein do not assert that the decision of the Larger Bench of this Tribunal in Vijay Sharma and Company vs. CCE was assailed in an appeal by Revenue. The axiomatic that doctrinal and normative coherence is as critical to fiscal legislation as it is in any other branch of law. Once this Tribunal has pronounced on an aspect having a clear and direct application in a subsequent case, such judgment, absent any overarching norm by any superior court must constitute the non-derogable norm in conformity with which subsequent assessment or adjudication should proceed. Recidivist and futile endeavours by Revenue for utopian perfection tends to undermine the stability of law and impose wholly avoidable litigation costs on the exchequer besides burdening the docket of this Tribunal."
Holding that the appeal filed by the Revenue was without any justification whatsoever, the CESTAT dismissed the same but, in the circumstances, with costs of Rs. 1,000/- (Rupees one thousand only) payable by Revenue to the assessee, for inflicting on it a wholly unjustified litigative trauma.
Quite a mouthful this - Get the Oxford and Webster's out of the closet!
(See )