Adjudication of DRI cases - jurisdiction of commissioners - top class bungling?

By Vijay Kumar

Again the Board has done it! They have done the impossible. They have given powers of adjudications to jurisdictions that do not exist. By a series of notifications, certain Commissioners have been given the power to adjudicate DRI cases pertaining to certain jurisdictions.

And by Notification No.30/2007-Customs (N.T.), the Commissioner of Central Excise (Adjudication), New Custom House, Indira Gandhi InternationalAirport, New Delhi is appointed to act as a common adjudicating authority to exercise the powers and discharge the duties conferred or imposed on, among others,

(i) The Commissioner of Customs, Hyderabad;

(ii) The Commissioner of Customs, Kakinada;

(iii) The Commissioner of Customs, Gandhi dham; and

(iv) The Commissioner of Customs, Mumbai,

We are not sure whether there is a Commissioner of Central Excise (Adjudication), New Custom House, Indira Gandhi InternationalAirport, New Delhi, and if there is one what a Central Excise Commissioner is doing in a Custom House, but we are sure that

1. There is nobody known as Commissioner of Customs, Hyderabad,

2. There is no Commissioner, let alone a Commissioner of Customs in Kakinada,

3. There is no Commissioner of Customs, Gandhi dham

4. There are at least nine Commissioners of Customs in Mumbai, but there is nobody known as Commissioner of Customs, Mumbai. In fact Mumbai has three Chief Commissioners of Customs; then who is this Commissioner of Customs, Mumbai?

NOTIFICATION NOs. 25, 26 ,27 ,28, 29 and 30 - cus NT Dated 11^thApril 2007.