'Loosing' cases – CBEC worried
DDT has been relentlessly championing the cause of appointing a few proof readers in the Board. The Board badly needs them more than Members and Commissioners. A recent circular issued by MEMBER (L&J) says that“both Secretary, Law and Secretary, Revenue have taken serious note of the fact that the Department has been loosing a number of cases in the Supreme Court involving high revenue, solely on the ground of limitation.” What he meant was obviously losing cases and not making them loose. An Under Secretary in the Board told us that he is scared that he is the ultimate law maker of the country. When he drafts a notification, there is nobody, just nobody, to read that notification. It becomes the law of the land.
Anyway Board is worried about losing (not loosing) cases because of late filing of appeals – in spite of repeated directions from the Board.
We have submitted on several occasions that obeying Board directions is not exactly a favorite pastime in the field.
Between 1997 and 2005, Board had issued at least five circulars asking Commissioners to send proposals for appeals to Supreme Court of India on time, but apparently Commissioners have better things to do than obeying Board instructions.
Board laments that in spite of repeated instructions, there is delay in the forwarding of the proposal by the Commissionerates. This has led to dismissal of several cases by the Supreme Court on limitation alone.
Now Board wants action to be initiated immediately on receipt of uncertified copy of the CESTAT’s orders and Board says these orders are available on www.cestat.gov.in
Before issuing the circular somebody in the Board should have checked up whether these orders are available on the said website. You can check it up now and you will find that no order is available there.
No wonder, Board’s circulars are flouted with impunity. Most of them are not implementable.
Board also informs that DG (Systems) is all set to dematerialize documents and records right from the Show Cause Notice stage. Once appeal papers are dematerialized their on line transmission will save considerable time and will also take care of missing documents at subsequent appeal stages.
Let us hope the D-Mat documents will work!
Board, further warns, that in future in all cases where the Department has lost on account of limitation, responsibility shall have to be fixed by the Chief Commissioner for the purpose of disciplinary action.
Board wants the truant Commissioners to fall in line. Will they? Is there anything the Board can do if they don’t? They can always issue another circular! This is the sixth one on the subject and one more can’t do any harm!
CBEC Circular No.835/12/2006-CX – incidentally Board is not very sure of the date of this important circular. It is dated October 5th/6th, 2006