ALL INDIA ASSOCIATION OF CENTRAL EXCISE
GAZETTED EXECUTIVE
OFFICERS
Patron
Chief Patron
Patron
A.
Venkatesh
Ravi Malik
C. S. Sharma
Mob. 7780255361 Mob. 9868816290 Mob.
9313885411
President:
Address for communication: Secretary
General:
T. Dass Flat No. 6,
SE 11, Shastri Nagar, Ghaziabad Harpal Singh
Vice Presidents: B L Meena, K V Sriniwas (Central) Chinmoy Ghosh, Rajashish Dutta
(East) Ashish Vajpayee, Amadul Islam (North) B Pavan K Reddy, M Jegannathan
(South) Sanjeev Sahai, U D Meena (West) Joint Secretaries: S P Pandey, T
A Manojuman (Central) Apurba Roy, Siddhath Tewari (East) A K Meena, S K
Shrimali (West) Anand Narayan, Prabhakar Sharma (North) H Sadanand, M Nagaraju
(South); All India Coordinator: B L Meena Office Secretary: B C
Gupta Treasuer: Manoj Kumar Organising Secretary: Soumen
Bhattachariya Liaisoning Secretary: Bhoopendra Singh
(Recognised by G.O.I., Min. of Fin. vide letter F.No.
B. 12017/10/2006-Ad.IV A Dt.21.01.08)
Office address: 206, B wing, CGO Complex II, Kamla
Nehru Nagar, Ghaziabad
Ref. No. 63/AIB/C/20
Dt. 13.04.20
To,
Sh. M. Ajit Kumar,
Chairman,
CBIC,
North Block,
New Delhi.
Sub: (i) Surrender of Staff to the state
governments.
(ii) Orders by state authorities for our officers to work in state
government.
Sir,
Your kind attention is invited to
some unwarranted situation arisen in Vizag Zone and NCT of Delhi forcing our
officers to work under the state administration.
2. In Vizag Zone, our own Chief
Commissioner is surrendering our officers from both wings, CGST and Customs, to
the State Government of Andhra
Pradesh and Telangana. The
District authorities of the Govt. of NCT of Delhi have also crossed perhaps
their statutory powers by ordering our officers to work under them vide their
Order No. F.1/302/DM/SE/Admn/2020/583-587 Dt. 05.04.20, No. F/SDM/DC/2020/2475
Dt. 11.04.20 etc. They have also challenged and trespassed the powers of our
authorities by making such orders. Such orders have also been made directly to
the concerned officers without taking permission from our higher authorities or
addressing them.
3. It is also worth to reiterate that our own Chief
Commissioner of Vizag Zone is surrendering our officers suo moto to the state
govt. by declaring them as surplus despite of the fact that all of our officers
are already working from home as per the advisory issued by the CBIC and also
the directions of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) which were reiterated by
the MHA yesterday on 12.04.20 also to keep our offices under GST totally locked.
Our Customs wing has been classified under the essential services by the MHA
and it has been directed to work with minimum bare staff.
4. Our CGST officers and staff are already busy with the
revenue augmentation work throughout the country by working from home and doing
the work upto the mark despite of the acute shortage of manpower. Under the
circumstances, it is not understandable how the step taken by our own Chief
Commissioner of Vizag to surrender our officers to the state governments is
justified. The same thing applies to the orders of the Govt. of NCT of Delhi.
It is also worth to mention that our officers would be placed under an
undignified situation, undue pressure and also exposure to the corona pandemic
by it. All of our officers are also already attending the phone calls and
social media messages from the trade as well as from our own authorities as
part of the online outreach programmes initiated by the CBIC in both wings,
CGST and Customs. The officers working in Customs are also directly attending the
clearance of goods and other essential services in addition to working from
home.
5. It is also worth to bring to your kind notice that our
officers are also being asked by our own Chief Commissioner of Vizag Zone to go
to the party premises for audit work. Since Audit functions require travelling
and contacting people and handling physical documents, the possibility of them
being infected by corona can’t be ruled out. This audit can also very well be
done by working from home by obtaining documents through electronic means and
preparing desk reviews to the extent possible. At this juncture, needless to
say that there is complete lock down and only exempted/essential services/supplies
are being allowed. And no CGST work falls under the category of essential
service/supply. Further, the availability of COVID-19 vaccine not being in the
scene, it is required that the present system of offline audit is to be
completely overhauled and online audit should be introduced.
6. The most of the Superintendents and promotee Group A
officers are more than 50 years of age and underlying medical conditions like
Diabetes, BP etc. Exposing these vulnerable officers to the open may endanger
their lives due to the pandemic and also their family members may get infected
by them. It is reiterated that the DOPT have already allowed such officers to
be in self quarantine and get medical/commuted leaves.
7. The State Governments including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana
and NCT of Delhi are already having multi layers of large work force including
volunteers. They should utilize their workforce. There is also no mention in
our service conditions that we have to work under the state governments. It is
also worth to mention that our officers are already engaged in the official
works from home including MSME involved in essential supply chain by attending
various revenue related functions including GST registration, processing of
refunds, online outreach and grievance redressal help desk for resolving tax
payers’ queries during lock down so as to keep the wheels of economy moving in
the present difficult time. The officers are not on leave but they are working
from home using VPN facility specially given to them, so that they can use the
GST network to facilitate the trade for the ease of doing business. There is no
doubt in it that the assigning the Central Tax officers for state government
duties would undermine the efforts of the Union Government to provide uninterrupted
services to the tax payers including the sanctioning of cash refund to them to
maintain credit supply in the lean season.
8. It is also worth to submit that the state authorities of
NCT of Delhi also gave no cognizance to the DO letter D.O.C. No.PCC/GST&CX/DZ/SS/2020
Dt. 07.04.20 of The Principal Chief Commissioner of Delhi Zone written to the
Chief Secretary of NCT of Delhi. Actually, such approach was also expected from
our Chief Commissioner of Vizag Zone instead of surrendering the staff to the
state governments.
9. In view of the above, it is requested that-
(i) None of our officers may kindly be surrendered or deputed
to the state government without willingnesss.
(ii) None of the state government authorities be allowed to
order and force our officers to work under them.
(iii) None of our officers be forced to go to field or party
premises for audit work or any other work except being declared essential by
the competent authority.
(iv) MHA guidelines of lock down may be followed in letter
and spirit to avoid the penal action/punishment under the relevant act/law/rule
against the officers.
(v) Our officers, who are working out of home in essential
services like Customs, may kindly be supplied Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) to protect their lives.
Thanking you,
Yours
sincerely,
(HARPAL
SINGH),
Secretary
General.
Copy with the request for necessary action to:
1) The Revenue Secretary, North Block, New Delhi.
2) The Secretary, MHA, North Block, New Delhi.
3) The Cabinet Secretary, President House, New Delhi.
4) The Hon’ble MOS, Ministry of Finance, North Block, New Delhi.
5) The Hon’ble Finance Minister, North Block, New Delhi.
6) The Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, South Block, New Delhi.
