Service Tax – Commissioner, Mumbai appointed as adjudicating authority with All India jurisdiction

By Vijay Kumar

In exercise of the powers conferred by Section 83A of the Finance Act, 1994, the Board has appointed the Commissioner of Service Tax, Mumbai for the purposes of investigation and adjudication of cases being investigated by the Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence against M/s First Flight Courier Ltd, Mumbai.

Now Section 83A reads as,

SECTION 83A. Power of adjudication. — Where under this Chapter or the rules made thereunder any person is liable to a penalty, such penalty may be adjudged by the Central Excise Officer conferred with such power as the Central Board of Excise and Customs constituted under the Central Boards of Revenue Act, 1963 (54 of 1963), may, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify.

So under this section, only penalty can be adjudicated by the designated officer. Recovery of tax has to be under Section 73. Will there be another notification for that?

This notification was published by the Board on 28^th July 2006, but we could not bring this to you, as it was simply not available. We checked at 9 am today and it is still not available even in the CBEC’s web site! Why are notifications not made available to the public?

NOTIFICATION NO. 26/2006-Service Tax, Dated: July 28, 2006