CBEC Makes Additional Charge PCs Powerful
BY Office Order No.79/2016, dated 14.07.2016, CBEC gave additional charge of the post of Chief Commissioner to 9 Principal Commissioners. By Office Order No.86/2016, dated 26.07.2016, CBEC gave additional charge of the post of Chief Commissioner to 4 more Principal Commissioners.
These 13 Principal Commissioners were holding the post of Chief Commissioners, but were they authorized to exercise the powers of Chief Commissioners? I tried to speak to one of them, but he refused to speak to me.
Board suddenly realized that these officers were not invested with the powers of Chief Commissioners and so they were not lawfully holding these posts. So, the Board issued Notification on 18.08.2016. The Notification states:
In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (b) of section 2 of the Central Excise Act, 1944 (1 of 1944), read with rule 3 of the Central Excise Rules, 2002, the Central Board of Excise and Customs hereby invests the officers specified in column (1) of the Table below, with the powers of the Central Excise Officer of the rank specified in column (2) of the said Table, in the jurisdiction specified in Notification No. , dated the 16th September, 2014 published in the Gazette of India, Extraodinary Part-II, Section 3, Sub-Section(i), vide G.S.R. 651 (E), dated the 16th September, 2014, namely:-
Does this solve the problem? Not really! Now the Principal Commissioners are invested with the powers of Chief Commissioner in the jurisdiction as specified in Notification No. , dated the 16th September, 2014. What's wrong with it? The only problem is there is no Notification No. , dated the 16th September, 2014. What the Board meant might have been Notification No. 27/2014-Central Excise (NT), dated the 16th September, 2014.
And look at the spelling of Extraodinary. It should have been ExtraoRdinary.
First they create the posts of Principal Chief Commissioner and Chief Commissioner to improve the promotional prospects of their officers. Then they are not able to find enough officers to be promoted to these posts. So, they appoint Principal Commissioners to hold additional charge of these posts. But they forget to invest these officers with the powers of Principal Chief Commissioner and Chief Commissioner. Then they issue a notification for the purpose of this vesting of the powers and there they cite a wrong notification, which will be corrected with a backdate (if they see this DDT). And remember this is a notification which they will place in Parliament!
All this in public interest and in furtherance of the noble cause of collecting revenue for the country!
Notifications have been issued under Customs, Central Excise and Service Tax.
Notification No. ., Dated: August 18 2016
Notification No. ., Dated: August 18 2016
Notification No. , Dated: August 18 2016