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 West 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. 61/AIB/G/25
Dt. 28.10.25
To,
The
Secretary,
Department
of Revenue, Ministry of Finance,
North
Block, New Delhi.
Sub: Problems
being faced at Superintendent level while enforcing GST Law -reg.
Sir,
As your goodself knows, it is submitted with due
regards that the Nation witnessed the advent of GST on 1st July,
2017 which changed the face of the tax regime. Over the years, we also
witnessed several progresses & improvements in Tax structure, lucidity in
implementation, ‘Samvaad’ with Taxpayers, shifting to BO portal and the list
goes on. But there are certain legal & administrative issues are being
faced by the Superintendents in day-to-day working. Some issues have already
been raised in past, but it met a wall with no change in approach of CBIC
administrative brass. The existing approach has created a lot of trouble for
taxpayers as well as for staff. The problems that came to the knowledge of the
Association are narrated below-
1.
Creation of cells without the
authority of law- There are two cells, namely
“Central Processing Cell” commonly known as CPC, and the second is “Post
Audit”, which have been created without the authority of Law. The impact is
that the officers posted in these cells do not have any authority under the GST
Law. Therefore, they are bound to follow illegal orders. The problem is
described as under-
(I) Central
Processing Cell: This
cell has been created for the new registration work. As per the GST Law, the jurisdictional officer is the proper officer for
all work related to GST registration, right from the grant of registration to
the cancellation of registration. This is being implemented in State GST, but
in CBIC, there is the CPC cell where all applications for new registration are
being dealt. In this process, some legal issues are involved -
(i) that the CPC cell has
been created without the authority of law, as there is no provision under the
CGST Act,2017, and rules framed thereunder. Moreover, no notification has been
issued in this regard.
(ii) the legal validity of the
existence of more than one proper officer in a jurisdiction.
(iii) that the officers of the
rank of Superintendent posted in the CPC are not proper officers as they are
not the jurisdictional officer.
(iv) that the processing/approval/denial of an application for new
registration by the Superintendents posted at CPC is without the authority of
Law.
(v) As the CPC has been
created on the directions of CBIC, the lower officers are bound to follow
illegal orders.
(II) Post Audit cell – This
branch/cell has been created for Post Audit of Refund orders (Refer Instruction
No. 3/22-GST dated 14.06.2022). As there is no separate provision of “Post
audit” of refund orders RFD-06 under the GST law, the creation of this
branch/cell is totally without the authority of law. There are provisions under
Section 107 of the CGST Act,2017, to review the orders passed by the proper
officer. The process of review is meant for cross-checking the legality or
propriety of the said decision/orders. No legal provisions are in the GST law, but CBIC has created the
Post Audit cell in contravention of legal provisions. In contrary to administrative
and judicial norms, post audit of refund claims is being performed by
the officers below or equal to the rank of Refund sanctioning officer. Vide
said instruction, while creating the post audit cell, it was specifically
narrated that post audit and review shall be conducted through the portal and
till the functionality has not developed, it would be through online mode. Now, the functionality of review is
available on BO [Refer Advisory No. 02/2024 dated 03-07-2024 by the Office of
the ADG (System & Data Management) Bengaluru], but it is also not
being used in most of the GST formations for the reason best known to the
authorities concerned whereas vide said advisory it was specifically emphasized
that “All orders (DRC-07 & RFD-06) issued on are after 01-06-2024 will be
reviewed in the BO by the officers assigned the Internal Review Cell (IRC)
role. Moreover,
non-deployment of the post audit functionality of GST BO is testimony of the
fact that the existence of the said post audit cell has no authority under the
GST law.
2.
Illegal orders passed by the First
Appellate Authorities- The First Appellate
Authorities are engaged in the act of remanding back the cases to the
adjudicating authority, whereas, as per provisions under the GST law, the power to remand back the case to the adjudicating authority
has not been given to the 1st Appellate Authority. All the orders issued by 1st Appellate Authorities,
wherein the case is remanded back to the Original Adjudicating authority,
violate the provisions of the CGST Act,2017 and have been issued beyond legal
authority enshrined under the Act, ibid.
3.
Senior officer avoids working
on the BO/ GST Portal-
(i) The information available on the BO portal can be viewed
by any tax officer, but the Senior Officer mostly desires the information from
the Range Superintendent in the e-office or otherwise.
(ii) The information which are available on the BO/GST portal and
viewed at the Commissionerate /CCO level is being called from the lower
formations in the name of reports.
(iii) As per instruction no. 4/2023, CBIC has clarified that DRC-01
& DRC-07 have to be served to the taxpayer electronically through the BO
Portal by the proper officer, but in many cases, Senior Officers avoid issuing
DRC-01 notices & DRC-07 orders through the portal, and the Range
Superintendents are being asked telephonically to issue the DRC-01/DRC-07. Some
officers give such orders on the e-office. There are instances on records,
wherein SCN/OIOs have been issued by the Senior Officers, but the DRC-01/DRC-07
have not been uploaded by them themselves, rather the same got uploaded from
the Range Superintendent ID. Such DRC 01/ DRC 07 are beyond the competency of
the Superintendent, being not the proper officer of such cases. In some cases,
through endorsements, the Range Superintendents are being directed to upload
DRC-01. In such cases, due to delays in the delivery to the Range formation,
the uploading of DRC-01 may be delayed and the demand/SCN may be infructuous.
It clearly establishes that senior officers have created pressure on
subordinates to issue/upload DRC-01 /DRC-07 through Range Superintendent IDs.
4.
“Proper
jurisdiction” and “Proper officer” are meaningless for CBIC: Proper jurisdiction and Proper officer
are essential in enforcing any law. Any act performed by a non-jurisdictional
officer or an improper officer is not sustainable in the eyes of the law, but
under CBIC, these words have lost their meaning. Some cases have come to notice where show-cause
notices have been issued in physical form to taxpayers situated outside the
state without serving DRC-01. Subsequently, adjudication orders have been
passed and sent to the jurisdictional Range for creating DRC-07. There are
instances in which Senior Officers posted in other states issued orders
confirming the demand/interest/penalty on taxpayers who are registered in the
UP, and neither DRC-01 nor DRC-07 was issued to the taxpayers through the
portal by the Proper Officer; rather copy of the orders passed has been sent to
the jurisdictional tax officer in UP to create DRC-07. Now the grim situation
has arisen for the taxpayer, who wishes to file an appeal against such orders
before the 1st appellate authority under the jurisdiction of said
taxpayer or the Ist Appellate Authority having jurisdiction over the said
Senior Officer who has passed said orders. Besides the above, there are
numerous cases where SCN have been issued by two tax officers, 1st
who has physically signed the notice and the second is the jurisdictional
officer who digitally signed the DRC-01 on the portal. A similar position lies
with the adjudication orders. In some cases, the DGGI forwards the multi
locational SCN for adjudication to Range Superintendents, who are neither the
common adjudicating authorities nor the proper officer to adjudicate the case
of a taxpayer outside their jurisdiction. Therefore, the legal question arises-
(i) Who is a proper
officer? 1st officer who has
signed physically or the 2nd officer who signed digitally?
(ii) Whether such
show cause notices or adjudication orders signed by two tax officers are
allowed in the GST law?
(iii) Whether such
show cause notices or adjudication orders signed by two tax officers are
sustainable in the court of law?
5.
Assigning the work without
assigning a role on the BO/GST Portal- All
the work related to irregularities pointed out by DGARM, Audit, CAG, State GST,
and DGGI is being forwarded to the Range for compliance, but the role of
“Enforcement Officer” has not been given at the Range Level. It is pertinent to
mention that the functionality to initiate an enquiry is available only under
the “Enforcement Officer” Role in BO, and Multiple chains of communication are
possible on a single thread between the tax officer and the taxpayer, but
the Superintendent posted at the Range level feels helpless as the said role
has not been assigned to them on the BO portal whereas there is no restriction
in the BO portal to assign the role of enforcement officer to the Range
Superintendent. In such a situation, the Superintendent is bound to
initiate the enquiry in the old manual/physical method out of the BO portal,
which is contrary to the government policy of least interaction with the
taxpayer.
6.
Paralysing the work efficiency
of the Range Superintendent- Besides the above, the
various roles/ tools that are being designed/developed for ease of tax officers
have not been provided at the Range level. One of them is “GST Prime”
which is a tool developed by the NIC as an analytical tool designed especially
for GST officials. The tool built by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) aims
at empowering tax officials to analyse and monitor all tax collections and
compliance measures prevalent in their jurisdiction, but this tool has not been
provided at the Range level. It is very surprising in State/UT GST, this
tool has been provided to all tax officers for ease of their work, but in the
CBIC, this has not been provided at the Range Level, even after regular
requests made by the officers to their Supervisory officer and/or with
respective nodal officers of GST Prime. Similar situation is also with “BIFA”,
which is being kept in a very restrictive manner with a very few senior officers.
7.
Irrational
distribution of work- Senior officers are not worried to rationalised the
work distribution. The lowest formation is Range, and at present, maximum
ranges have 2000 to 20000 taxpayers, whereas in SGST rational number of
taxpayers exists in their Khand/Sector with multiple tax assessing officers
(DC/AC/CTO) with supporting staff, steno/clerks/DEO. The executive officer to
taxpayer ratio is adverse in CBIC in comparison with the State GST formations,
hampering the work in qualitative and quantitative terms. In reality, one superintendent cannot open
all the returns filed by the taxpayers in one year. The question of revenue
analysis & monitoring at the range level is meaningless. Therefore, it is
requested to issue suitable directions to reorganise the Ranges immediately.
Priority should be for proper staffing at Range Level, but it has been observed
that in Executive Commissionerates, excess officers are posted for Anti-Evasion
work and Ranges are being administered through additional charges to the
Superintendents as well as Inspectors. The Maximum Limit of taxpayers in a
Range formation should be fixed. Accordingly, the number of ranges should be
enhanced, and the sanctioned strength of the Superintendents/Inspectors manning
the Ranges should be revised on practical and realistic terms.
8.
No assistance to the
Superintendent- It
is also very surprising that there is a functionality “Assign to Assistant” in
the BO but role of assistant has not been assigned to any STA/TA. Even no
STA/TA have ever been posted in the range to assist the Superintendent.
Further, the Inspectors posted in the ranges are proper officer only for PV and
accordingly no role has been assigned in BO except for the PV report. This has
resulted that all the work assigned to the Ranges has to be completed by the
superintendent himself without any assistance. This has resulted Superintendents are struggling very hard to
cope up with the pressure, humiliation & several other ill effects. This shows that Range Superintendents are specifically being
targeted and kept overburdened by not assigning/ not making available
supporting staff for the reasons best known to the higher authorities whereas
no officer above the Superintendent/ Range Superintendent is there, who does
their work without the help of an assistant or supporting staff. Why is it so, and why such a type of
discrimination is with the Superintendent/ Range Superintendent, should be a
point of concern for the CBIC top authorities, but so far, nothing appears to
have been done for reasons not known to this Association.
9.
Entire Scrutiny/assessment
work entrusted only upon Superintendent- The
entire work of scrutiny/assessment has been entrusted upon Range Superintendent either
by declaring them as Proper officer or through delegation/assigning the work
and no supporting staff like clerks/DEO etc. have been provided to them whereas
in State GST, 4 level officers Joint
Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner/ Assistant Commissioner/CTO or STO have been
appointed as proper officer for assessment & adjudication within their
monetary limit with the help of sufficient number of 7-8 supporting staff
besides stenos and clerk/DEO, peon etc. Therefore, it is requested to
distribute the Scrutiny/ assessment work among the Joint Commissioner, Deputy
Commissioner, Assistant Commissioner, Superintendent and Inspector according to
monetary limits based on the turnover of the taxpayer.
10.
Misuse of position-
(i) In
CBIC, Officers of the rank of ADC/JC/DC/AC have been kept away from the work of
scrutiny/assessment, but these officers have been designated as proper officers
for issuance of notices under Section 73/74. Now a mute question arises that
how these tax officers, without being involved in the process of
Scrutiny/Assessment, determine the short payment/non-payment/wrong availment of
ITC, etc., for the issuance of notices. In actuality, Senior officers neither determine any short payment/non-payment/wrong availment of ITC nor perform other work on their wisdom. They ask
the superintendents to complete the work, prepare the notice, orders, etc. and
submit them in the e-office from where they easily
download a copy of the notice, order and put their signatures on SCN/order
before issuance from the GST Portal. These activities are verifiable from the
e-office files.
(ii) Further, the
postings of Superintendents in the Adjudication Branch, Review Branch, and
Commissioner (Appeals) show that Senior officers are not performing their
quasi-judicial functions/ work allocated to them under the GST Law. The said
postings are only for preparing orders/appeals and submitting them in
the e-office and/or in physical form, from where they easily download the same and put their signatures and/or
sign on the physical file before issuance from the GST Portal. These activities
leave a question whether the Superintendent, who is also an independent proper
officer for scrutiny & adjudication work within prescribed monetary limits,
can be treated or appointed as an “Assistant” of another senior officer who is
an independent proper officer for performing quasi-judicial work under the GST
Law.
(iii) In the Range
formations, it is regular practice to ask comments in respect of the orders in
the original passed by the Assistant Commissioners/Joint
Commissioners/Additional Commissioners. How can a junior officer give an
impartial comment on the orders passed by the senior officers, and under what
authority is it being sought from the Range Superintendents only.
(iv) In case of orders passed by the Assistant
Commissioners/Joint Commissioners/Additional Commissioners, in respect of the
appeals of the party/taxpayer, the appeal office asks for comments from the
Range formation and directs for personal appearance of Range Officer’s. The
question arises here, why are the concerned adjudicating authorities not being
asked for comments, and the personal appearance, rather this work also being
imposed upon the Range Superintendent.
(v) It has been observed that in the case of Appeal
Commissionerates, the copies of appeals and even letters for personal hearing
are being sent to the Range formation for services, whereas the Appeals
Commissionerates have proper infrastructure for that. The online module/method
for the service of such communication should be made.
(vi) In respect of
any instructions sought by the Standing Counsel for Appeal matters, comments of
the Range Officer/Superintendent are being asked for despite having the post of
Superintendent/ Assistant Commissioner (Legal) at the Commissionerate level.
In
view of the above, it is requested to kindly review the functioning of the
field formations of the CBIC and look into the issues raised herein above. It
is very humbly submitted that workload and accountability of the Superintendent
of the CBIC should be revisited and proper workload at all levels of officers
in CBIC should be distributed, so that functional requirement of the officers
at all levels may be as per the GST law, which shall make our esteemed
organisation effective, efficient and responsive for the delivery of services
to the taxpayer with maximising the revenue collection.
Thanking
you,
Yours sincerely,
(HARPAL SINGH),
Secretary
General.
Copy with the request
for necessary action to :-
1. The Chairman, Central Board of Indirect Taxes
& Customs, New Delhi.
2. The
Principal Chief Commissioner/Chief Commissioner, CGST Zone AHMEDABAD/
BENGALURU/ BHOPAL/ BHUBANESWAR/ CHANDIGARH/ CHENNAI/ DELHI/ GUWAHATI/
HYDERABAD/ JAIPUR/ KOLKATA/ LUCKNOW/ MEERUT/ MUMBAI/ NAGPUR/ PANCHKULA/ PUNE/
RANCHI/ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM/ VADODARA/ VISAKHAPATNAM - AMARAVATHI
