History of Customs Audit

By Vijay Kumar

But a little history of Customs itself.

Legislation on Customs duties dates back to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when the Sea Custom Act was enacted in 1878, to regulate the collection of duty on import and export and also to regulate the flow of traffic. This was the basic law relating to customs and was amended from time to time.

While the Sea Customs Act was mainly intended to regulate the traffic by sea, there was no Act for the overland traffic till the Land Customs Act was passed in the year 1924. It was not a self-contained Act, but it was applied by reference to the provisions in the Sea Customs Act with certain modifications.

Air traffic was not appreciable prior to World War-II. There was no separate law relating to Air Customs. Air traffic was regulated by the rules made under the Indian Aircraft Act, 1934. Under Rule 63 of these Rules, all persons importing or exporting or concerned in importing or exporting goods by air or passengers coming to or going from India by air and all persons in charge of aircraft arriving in or departing from India were required to comply with and were bound by the provisions of the Sea Customs Act, 1878.

If revenue comes, can Audit be far behind?

The Customs Revenue Audit is perhaps the earliest of Revenue Audits taken up, as such, on a systematic basis. Prior to the constitution of a separate department for audit and accounts, the audit was conducted by the staff working under the Assistant Collector of Customs. It was in 1895 that such audit was commenced in the office of the Board of Revenue for audit of accounts of the Calcutta Custom House. In 1909, audit branches were constituted in each Custom house under the control of the Collector.

Later in 1911, the Government of India felt that in addition to the executive and accounts audit conducted by the staff working under the control of the Assistant Collector, there should be a test audit of accounts of the Custom Houses at reasonable intervals by a peripatetic audit staff working under a trained officer of the Accounts Department. The arrangement to conduct such audit came into effect in 1913. The Auditor was first designated as ‘Auditor of Customs Account in India’ but later came to be known as ‘Examiner, Customs Accounts’.

After the Government of India Act, 1919 was passed duties and powers of the Auditor General were laid down in Auditor General’s Rules, 1926. Under Rule 12, the audit of customs revenue was entrusted to the Auditor General in the same year. Even after the promulgation of the Constitution of India in 1950, the Customs Revenue Audit was continued to be done as before in accordance with the provisions of Audit and Accounts Order, 1936 till the Audit Act 1971, was passed.

The Audit Act, 1971 contains a provision in Section 16 empowering the Comptroller and Auditor General to audit all receipts payable into the Consolidated Fund of India and of each State andUnion Territories. The audit of receipts has thus become the statutory responsibility of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

During 1931-32, on an inquiry into the working of the Customs Revenue Audit, it was decided that :

(i) the statutory audit should in future be of a purely financial character and should not be in the nature of administrative audit or inspection;

(ii) the audit need not be extensive and should in essence be a test audit; and

(iii) while the auditors carrying out the initial audit must necessarily be specially trained in and have experience of Customs Revenue Audit, it was not necessary to employ a specialist Officer to supervise the audit, that is to say a specialist in Customs Law Administration.

On completion of the inquiry it was decided to decentralise customs audit. The posts of Examiner of Customs Accounts and Assistant Examiner were abolished and audit was entrusted to the Maritime Accountant General, Bengal, Bombay, Madras and later on Kerala. The Accountant General, Central Revenues was appointed as the coordinating Principal Auditor in regard to matters connected with procedure and practice in all Custom Houses and for the presentation of the results of Customs Revenue Audit vis-à-vis Government and vis-a vis the Public Accounts Committee. He had to see, that uniformity of practice and procedure existed in various Custom Houses and to take such action as was considered necessary, in consultation with the Government of India, to ensure it, where diversity existed. The pre-checks of drawback rates and approval in audit was also done by the Accountant General, Central Revenues.

The Customs Revenue Audit branches were constituted in 1932 and started functioning as Resident Audit units at the customs ports. The branches were treated as separate from the regular cadres in the Civil Audit and Accounts Offices. Administrative control of the branches working in the offices of the different maritime Accountants General vested with the Accountant General, Central Revenues.

If you think Audit is a nuisance, it didn’t start yesterday.