ALL
INDIA ASSOCIATION OF CENTRAL TAX
GAZETTED EXECUTIVE
OFFICERS
(Earlier
known as All India Association of Central Excise Gazetted Executive Officers)
President: Address for
communication: Secretary General:
Kajal
Kumar Mandal Flat
No. 6, SE 11, Shastri Nagar, Ghaziabad Harpal Singh
Mob. 9957366172 mail
Id:aiacegeo2019@gmail.com Site:cengoindia.blogspot.in
Mob. 9717510598
Chief Patron: Ravi Malik Patrons: A. Venkatesh, C. S. Sharma, M. Nagaraju
Vice Presidents: B C
Khatik, K D Venkatraman (Central) Swapan
Kr Das, Subrata Adhikary (East) Ashish Vajpayi, B B Sharma (North) G Srinivas
Reddy, G Ananda Sukumar (South) Siddhraj Parmar, Vimal Kishore Soni (West) Joint
Secretaries: Manoj Kumar, T J Manojumon (Central) Pradyut Purkayastha,
Ashis Maji (East) Rajeev Prakash, Anil Sreedharan (West) Prabhakar Sharma, R B
Sahu (North) K Yugandhar Kumar, S M Kosalaya Devi (South); Office Secretary:
B C Gupta Treasurer: Manoj Kumar Liaison Secretary: Bhoopesh Organising
Secretary: Utkarsh Sharma South Zone Coordinator: R Keny Legal
Coordinator: S Sabarwal Joint Organising Secretary: Jayant Dey
East Zone Coordinator: Debasish Modak
(Recognised
vide F.No.B-12017/17/2022-AD-IV A dt. 14.07.23 of CBIC, Govt. of India)
Ref.
No. 09/AIB/T/25
Dt. 17.02.25
To,
The Chairman, CBIC,
North Block, New Delhi.
Sub: Substantial loss of revenue
due to poor implementation of GST and non-observance of rules and procedures in
CBIC formations-reg.
Sir,
It is
to submit with due regards that the entire work of
GST has been routed through the electronic portal which is being managed by
GSTN. The access to GST portal has been made available to both taxpayers and tax
officers. All taxpayers as well as tax officers must perform the work only
through the portal except where functionality/modality has not been enabled in the
portal. Each tax officer has a role in the execution of particular work and
officers have to perform that work through the portal but in the offices under
CBIC, the work of “Review of orders” and
issuance of “Appeal Orders” are being deliberately performed through old
manual process whereas the functionality/modality are available on
portal since long.
2. All the demand notices and refund orders are being
processed on the portal and copy of each order goes to the dashboard of the review
officer. As per CBIC instructions, all the orders are being reviewed. If review
officer feels that demand has been incorrectly dropped (partially or fully) by
adjudicating authority or any amount of refund has been granted incorrectly,
department may file an appeal. Entire process of review and filing of appeal
has to be executed online through portal. Thereafter, the appeal moves to the appellate
authority who has also to perform entire work on portal right from
communication of appeal to the taxpayer and its final decision. The system has
been designed in such a way that findings of review officer, filing of appeal
or acceptance of order, communication of appeal to the taxpayer, reply of
taxpayer, personal hearing, final order etc. all get recorded in the portal but
the review officers and appellate authority under CBIC are not performing
review work in digital mode on portal. Review officers are directing
adjudicating officers to send a copy of order in physical form which are being
processed through e-office files which is outside the GSTN portal. All the
appeal (GST Form APL-3) are being filed through offline mode. First appellate authorities
are one step ahead and disposing all the appeals via old physical method
whether these are filed by department in physical form or filed by the taxpayer
electronically through Portal.
3. Due to the aforesaid non observance of procedures, so
many anomalies have arisen which have bad impact on revenue as well as serious
legal consequences which may arise in future. Some of them are narrated as below-
A) As per provisions under Section 107(2) of CGST Act, 2017, the
appeal against any order/decision has to be filed within six months from the
date of communication of the order/decision. Review officers under CBIC are
considering the date as “date of communication” when hard copy of order is
received in their office whereas in the GST portal, the copy of order is
transmitted electronically to the review officer/officer having IRC role at the
same date and time when it is issued, which means the order is
delivered/communicated to review cell on the same date and time when it is
issued. Therefore, maximum number of appeals which have been filed before the
first appellate authority after 7 months (six months normal time plus one month
time condonable delay) are time barred and it is very surprising that first appellate
authority admits such appeals.
B)
As the first appeal authorities are not issuing appeal order (GST Form
APL-04) through the Portal, the demand register maintained by Portal is not
getting updated which results into a loss to the exchequer in the following
manner -
(i)
When the appeal filed by the department
is up-held by appeal authority, the demand should be created in liability
register of the tax payer but due to non-issuance of appeal order (APL-04) by
first appellate authority through Portal, no such demand is being created in
liability register of the taxpayer. There are thousands of such orders
involving huge revenue.
(ii)
When the appeal filed by the taxpayer
is set aside by the appeal authority, the status of the demand should be
amended in liability register of the tax payer but due to non-issuance of appeal
order (APL-04) through Portal no such updation takes place and the confirmed
demand remains lying under the status “appeal filed” and escapes from recovery
action.
(iii)
When the appeal filed by the taxpayer
is allowed with consequential relief, the taxpayer applies for refund in r/o
tax/interest/penalty already paid but due to non-issuance of appeal order
(APL-04) through Portal, taxpayer does not have reference number to mention in
the claim and does not have a contra entry in liability register. Therefore,
such refund claims are being filed without APL-04 reference number. In such
situations, Portal cannot link refund claim with appeal order and possibility
of misuse by claiming refund more than once is quite possible in a span of two
year time period.
C) Besides the above, appellate authorities are also engaged in act
of remanding back the cases to the adjudicating authority whereas as per
provisions under GST law, the power to remand back the
cases to the adjudicating authority has not been given to the appeal authority. The extract of the section 107(11) of the CGST
Act, 2017 which provides for the manner of passing order by appellate authority,
is reproduced as below:
'The
Appellate Authority shall, after making such further inquiry as may be
necessary, pass such order, as it thinks just and proper, confirming, modifying
or annulling the decision or order appealed against but shall not refer the case back to the adjudicating authority that
passed the said decision or order.'
4. Thus, it is
clear that all the orders issued by the first appellate authorities, wherein
case is remanded back to original adjudicating authority, are contrary to the provisions
of GST law and have been issued beyond capacity and it
is very surprising that such orders are being accepted by the review officer.
Further, it is also very serious matter
that the confirmed demand “DRC-07” issued by the adjudicating authorities are
lying in portal as “Demand under Appeal” whereas the case is reached to original
adjudicating authority due to remand back and adjudicating authority feels
helpless as they cannot take any action on the case which is not on his dashboard.
5. The aforesaid
irregularities have been brought to your kind notice for initiating suitable action
to avoid any legal consequences which may arise.
Thanking you,
Yours sincerely,
(HARPAL SINGH),
Secretary
General.
Copy to the Revenue Secretary: with the request for
necessary action.
