The Hindu Business Line : Flak for slack adjudication

THE Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has urged the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) to strictly enforce the time-limit for finalising adjudication through effective monitoring and control.

In its report on non-adjudication of demands and inordinate delay in the recovery of confirmed demands, tabled in Parliament on Tuesday by its Chairman, Sardar Buta Singh, the committee said that it "specifically" sought the Board to ensure that the cases of adjudication, particularly those pertaining to wilful mis-statement of duty, fraud, collusion or suppression of facts, were finalised within the stipulated period so that Government dues were recovered promptly before such assesses get their assets alienated, leaving nothing to recover the duty from.

The committee said its examination of the records of the cases pending adjudication shows that in 37 out of 60 commissionerates, 28,989 cases involving duty of Rs 2,038.08 crore were pending for the period prior to 1995-96. This pendency went on escalating and rose up to 36,868 cases with duty involvement of Rs 3,387.33 crore till September 1997 and non-collection of revenue by way of interest up to March 1998 amounted to Rs 1,696.75 crore.

The committee said it was "astounded" to find that the majority of the cases pending for adjudication related to the call-book cases. The manner of disposal of call-book cases hardly inspired confidence, it said, adding that the Board had issued instructions to Commissioners to review the cases transferred to call book on a monthly basis scrupulously. In order to protect the interest of revenue and to avoid needless litigation, the committee felt that the Commissioners of Central Excise should scan and approve before the cases were transferred to call book/postponed for adjudication. "Such cases should be scrupulously reviewed regularly and the progress of linked cases in litigation also monitored," it said.

Citing a decision of Mumbai High court that "even if an appeal is filed with a stay application, until the stay application is disposed of, the department cannot proceed to recover the Government dues", the committee said "surprisingly the judgement of the High Court has not yet been challenged in the apex court even after a lapse of three years."

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