Board transfers old files of Vizag Commissioner (Appeals) to Hyderabad- by an office order!
The office order issued by the Revenue Department states, “It has been decided with the approval of Competent Authority that the 3 Appellate Commissioner of Central Excise posted in Hyderabad zone be given the additional charge of Commissioner (Appeal), Vizag with immediate effect and until further orders” Cases pertaining to the year up to 2002 are given to one Commissioner (Appeals), for the year 2003 to another and the year 2004 to yet another Commissioner (Appeals). Who is the Competent Authority whose approval the department has taken? This order seems to be patently illegal.
As per Rule 3(2) 0f the Central Excise Rules,
(2) The Board may, by notification, specify the jurisdiction of a Chief Commissioner of Central Excise, Commissioner of Central Excise or
Commissioner of Central Excise (Appeals) for the purposes of the Act and the rules made there under.
So it is the Board which has to by notification specify the jurisdiction of the Commissioner (Appeals) and the Board had issued a Notification No. 14/2002 CENT to specify the jurisdiction. This notification also specifies that
Provided that a Chief Commissioner of Central Excise may, within his jurisdiction, specify, the jurisdiction of a Commissioner of Central Excise (Appeals) and jurisdiction of such Commissioner of Central Excise (Appeals) shall be limited to the jurisdiction so specified.
So if the Chief Commissioner wants, the jurisdiction of a Commissioner (Appeals) can be changed. But there doesn’t seem to be a provision under the law for appointing Commissioners (Appeals) by office orders without amending the relevant notifications.
The real problem is that cadre review has created several posts of Commissioner (Appeals) and they all want to be posted in cities like Hyderabad and not small places like Vizag! Even as per the Board’s statistics there are more than 400 appeals pending in Vizag with only one Commissioner(Appeals) while there are less than a hundred appeals pending in Hyderabad which has three Commissioners (Appeals). Is there anything called accountability???
Department of Revenue Office Order No. 184/2005 Dated: 31st October, 2005
Though DDT had pointed out, on 3rd November 2005, that the only way to send those three Commissioners to Vizag was by amending the notification, the Board took exactly two months to do the amends. It is heartening to see the Board correcting a mistake, a gross one at that. But at what cost? In the last two months the three commissioners of Hyderabad and the litigants and their lawyers did a lot of flying around to and from Vizag - for what? For hearings which were illegal and without authority and jurisdiction! All the hearings given by the three Hyderabad Commissioners for Vizag cases are illegal and improper and so all the orders passed by them would also be void. How much money and time both public and private were wasted because Board does not know how to give effect to their legislative intentions and they don’t react quick enough? If some junior babu had done this kind of mistake the might of the Board would have fallen on him, but Board is Board and above board.
Now Board has amended Notification No. 14/2002-Central Excise (N.T.) by the first Central Excise notification of the year appointing four Commissioners (Appeals) and specifying their jurisdiction.
But does this solve the problem? Unfortunately the answer is NO. The posts of four Commissioners (Appeals) have been notified for Vizag but posting Commissioners has not yet been done. Until then those Vizag cases cannot be heard by any one. As of now the situation is that though the statute has four Commissioners (Appeals) in Vizag there is no Commissioner there physically. This has another related problem. The Commissioner of Central Excise (Appeals), Vizag is also the Commissioner of Customs (Appeals). Notification No. 16/2002-Cus. (N.T.), dated 7-3-2002 deals with the appointment of Commissioner of Customs (Appeals). Unless that notification is also amended or one (or all) of these four commissioners is also given jurisdiction as Commissioner of Customs (Appeals), there will be no appellate Commissioner for Customs in Vizag. Too many notifications; too many commissioners - it is really difficult to monitor for the Board. Let’s hope the Board will not wait for another couple of months to rectify these lapses.
NOTIFICATION NO. , Dated: January 3, 2006