Judgement applicable throughout the country:
JK Mittal, the Advocate who argued the case on behalf of the assessee says that this judgement has force throughout the country as statutory Rule was under challenge and the same is struck down. He adds, "Throughout India, members of trade and industry have been subject to serious harassment for the last several years as central excise officers routinely for conducting audit issuing letters seeking voluminous records for the last 5 years as well numerous information in self specified formats which are not there under the law and these officers visits assessee's premises for audit. Similarly, officers of Comptroller & Audit General of India also visit the assessee's premises for conducting audit of Service Tax and Central Excise Assessees. All this being done on the basis of so called Rule 5A(2) and internal audit manual of the Department. This has led to serious resentment among members of the trade and industry as this practice has been followed all around the country without any check which was not only breeding large scale corruption and frivolous demands and unnecessary litigation across the country. The matter was taken up several times with Ministry of Finance at highest level but all in vain.