NFU

 

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

Mob.9848088928     mail Id:aiacegeo2019@gmail.com    Site:cengoindia.blogspot.in        Mob.9717510598

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, Siddharth 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 North Zone Coordinator: C. P. Verma

(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. 09/AIB/N/21                                                                                 Dt. 11.01.21

To,

Ms. Sungita Sharma,

Member (P&V), CBIC,

North Block, New Delhi.

Sub: Batch to batch Non Functional Financial Upgradation (NFU) to our officers to grant financial parity with the best placed counterparts.

Madam,

Kindly refer to the earlier various requests of the Association on the issue.

            2. With due regards, it is to submit that the concept of NFU was started for the Section Officers of CSS (counterparts of Central Excise/CGST Superintendents) in Group ‘B’ category in the form of time scale after completion of 4 years of service being already existed for Group ‘A’ officers. This was started for Section Officers in 2003 with retrospective effect from 01.01.96 granting Group ‘A’ scale of Rs. 8,000-13,500/- to them after completion of 4 years of service without any recommendations of the pay commission. However, such time scale/NFU was also granted to many other categories of Group ‘B’ officers after the implementation of VIth CPC report to undo the disparity in comparison with the Group ‘B’ officers of CSS. It was, however, granted in Group ‘A’ scale to some and in Group ‘B’ scale to others including the Central Excise/CGST Superintendents establishing a clear disparity.

            3. All organised group ‘A’ officers recruited with IAS in the same pay scale through common entry were also granted financial parity with the counterparts of IAS in the form of non-functional financial up-gradation (NFU) vide DOPT OM No. AB.14017/64/2008-Estt.(RR) Dt. 24.04.09 to compensate lack of promotions as compared to IAS. Intention behind it was to compensate financial loss to group ‘A’ officers in comparison to the counterparts of IAS. Particularly keeping in view the extraordinarily acute stagnation of Central Excise Superintendents & Inspectors, a proposal for non-functional financial up-gradation to grant them financial parity with the counterparts of CSS was approved and recommended to DOPT by the CBIC. But DOPT without going into the merits returned the same simply saying that NFU is applicable only for Group ‘A’ organized service.

4. The most of the Central Excise/CGST Superintendents are retiring with single promotion on a PB2 post in a career of 35-40 years after being recruited as Inspector (whether DR or promotee) whereas their common entry counterparts of Customs, CBDT, CSS etc. are easily being promoted to PB4 (Level-13 & above) levels with 5-6 promotions. Central Excise/CGST Superintendents are also forced to work under their extreme juniors of Customs (Examiners) belonging to the same cadre of Inspector and recruited through the same process under the same organization of CBIC in the same department of Revenue of the same Ministry of Finance with the same administrative hierarchy. The Examiners have already become Addl. Commissioner (GP-Rs. 8700/- in PB4/Level-13) after getting 5 promotions but the Central Excise Inspectors of the respective batch are yet to get IInd promotion to the JTS post of Asstt. Commissioner (GP-Rs. 5400/- in PB3/Level-10). We have nothing against these counterparts and wish them to get even more promotions but also request for same benefit for us. We may kindly be granted at least financial parity with them, if not parity in functional promotions despite of being recruited in the same cadre under same organisation of CBIC.

5. The group ‘B’ non-gazetted officers at the level of the Inspector of Central Excise/CGST and Examiners of Customs are recruited in the same pay scale through common entry examination conducted by SSC. The officers recruited as Examiner of Customs get the benefit of promotions upto the Addl. Commissioner level. However, the majority of the Inspectors of Central Excise/CGST gets only one promotion in 35/40 years of service career. It is reiterated that the Central Excise/CGST Inspector and Examiners belong to the same cadre of Inspector under CBIC. The Examiners are looking after the work of Customs only whereas the Inspectors of Central Excise/CGST are looking after the work of Central Excise, GST and also of Customs.

6. The Examiners are also able to get the benefit of the NFU being granted vide DOPT OM No. AB.14017/64/2008-Estt.(RR) Dt. 24.04.09 on account of being promoted to the higher Group ‘A’ levels whereas the officers recruited as Inspectors of Central Excise/CGST are devoid of this NFU for the want of promotions upto the level being attained by Examiners.

7. Above facts very well manifest the injustice meted out to the officers recruited as Central Excise/CGST Inspector despite of the most important work of revenue collection in CGST and IGST alongwith Customs being done by them. During this course, they have been facing every threat including life of them as well as their families by the hard core criminals, dreaded smugglers and white collared criminals alongwith tremendous administrative pressures. On account of this, the officers recruited as the Inspector of Central Excise/CGST deserve a far better treatment in every aspect including pay, perks and career prospects. The grant of the non-functional financial upgradation on batch to batch basis with the common entry counterparts namely Examiners belonging to the same cadre, i.e., Inspector, may be a solace for these hard working Central Excise/CGST officers.

8. As far as the importance of the work responsibilities is concerned, the Superintendents of Central Excise/CGST are discharging all functions relating to assessment, investigation & intelligence, issuance of Show Cause Notices with the responsibility of adjudication. They have not only been conferred with the judicial responsibilities in the matter of adjudication but also conferred with the judicial responsibilities of recording statements of various persons in terms of Section 14 of the Central Excise Act, 1944 and Section 108 of the Customs Act, 1962 and also under GST.  The statements tendered before the Central Excise/CGST Superintendent have a legal binding and are treated as a valid piece of evidence by various courts including the Hon’ble Supreme Court just like the statements tendered before a Magistrate. Not only it, the Adjudication Orders are also being prepared by them for the Commissioner level officers. It is also important to mention that the judicial officers are not only being highly paid with extra perks but also treated in a far better way in the matter of career prospects in our country barring Central Excise/CGST Superintendents who are also working as adjudicating authority in the relevant cases.

9. New higher responsibilities of judicial nature were conferred upon Central Excise Superintendents vide Circular No.  922/12/ 2010-CX issued vide F. No. 208/2/2009-CX-6 Dt. 18.05.10 and 130/12/2010–ST issued vide F. No. 137/68/2010-CX. 4 Dt. 20.05.10. Their responsibilities were further increased ten times by enhancing the adjudication limit to Rs. 10 lac vide circular No. 1049/37/2016-CX issued vide F. No. 267/40/2016-CX.8 Dt. 29.09.16 of CBIC. Their adjudication responsibilities have again been enhanced to the tune of Rs. 20 lac vide Circular No. 31/05/2018-GST issued vide F.No. 349/75/2017-GST Dt. 09.02.18 of GST Policy Wing of CBIC.

10. Though the Central Excise/CGST Superintendents and inspectors are performing more responsible work functions as compared to other common entry counterparts, yet they are facing the worst career prospects instead of getting better treatment. This injustice is being faced by them despite of being the ‘backbone of the government revenue’ on account of being the major revenue collectors for the government in the form of Central Excise duty, Customs duty, IATT, FTT, Service Tax, CGST & IGST. In the actual terms, they are the ‘backbone of the government’ on account of being responsible for the finance of the government. But very unfortunately, they are being totally ignored in every matter.

11. The parity being the basic concept of our Constitution, the parity in promotions is required to be maintained amongst the similarly placed employees but no action has been initiated to maintain parity in promotions as well as pay packages amongst the Group ‘B’ officers by the govt. The group ‘A’ officers have already been granted financial parity by the grant of non-functional financial upgradation in comparison to the counterparts of IAS. Like it, the grant of the batch to batch non-functional financial upgradation after entry into group ‘B’ or equivalent grade is also the immediate need of the time for all group ‘B’ officers in general and Central Excise/CGST Superintendents/Inspectors in particular to bring them at par at least financially with the best placed group ‘B’ counterparts.  

12. As submitted above, the CBIC was pleased to forward a proposal to DOPT for the grant of NFU to our officers at par with the counterparts of CSS which was turned down by the DOPT. The matter was also recommended to 7^th CPC by the CBIC as advised by the Department of Expenditure but the CPC kept silence on it without giving any finding. After the publication of 7^th CPC report, the matter was again recommended by CBIC vide OM F. No.A-26017/154//2015-Ad.IIA Dt. 22.02.16 but no action till date. Balesh Kumar committee formed by the CBIC on the issue of stagnation also recommended the said NFU for our officers. It is also worth to mention that the cabinet also recommended to bring an independent scheme in addition to the cadre restructuring more than 7 years ago for removal of the stagnation being faced by our officers but nothing done till date.    

13. It is also worth to submit that the MACP Scheme has also been proved harmful for our officers as they are getting under it after 30 years of service what they were getting under ACP Scheme after 24 years. They were able to get the Grade Pay of 5400/- in PB3 (Level-10) after 24 years of service under ACP Scheme which they are now getting after 30 years of service under MACP Scheme.

14. As far as the non-functional time scale after completion of 4 years of service is concerned, the same has been granted to our officers merely in PB2 (Level-9) whereas it has been granted to the counterparts of CSS, MPA, MEA, DANICS, DANIPS, Railway Board, CSSS, AFHQ, Rajya Sabha Secretariat etc. in PB3 (Level-10) placing our officers one level below.

15. It is discriminatory and violative of Art. 14 & 16 of Constitution to give benefit of a scheme only to a particular category of employees, i.e., Group ‘A’, who are already getting higher salary benefits, higher promotions and every higher facility/amenity in comparison to other categories of the employees. Therefore, it is very necessary to place all the employees belonging at least to a particular category (Group ‘B’ or ‘C’) at financial parity giving them natural justice in the form of Non-Functional Financial Upgradation as done in the case of the officers belonging to the Group ‘A’ category.

16. In the meeting of 14.01.16 under the Chair of the Member (P&V) of CBIC with the Association, it was said by the authorities that the matter would be examined again for possible reference to DOPT but nothing has been done till date.

17. In the meeting of 18.08.17 under the Chair of the Member (Admn) of CBIC with the Association, the matter was again recorded/minuted and action was mentioned to DGHRD/AD. II/IIA/IIIA/IVA for all points but nothing has been done till date.

18. Keeping in view the above, it is requested to consider the matter sympathetically to grant non-functional financial up-gradation (NFU) to the officers joining as Central Excise/CGST Inspectors at par with the best placed Group ‘B’ counterparts belonging to the same cadre under CBIC itself, i.e., the officers joining as Examiners, to grant them at least financial parity on account of the lack of promotions for the sake of justice. No need to submit that this would boost their morale multifold resulting further into multifold efficiency in tax administration and multifold increase in revenue collection. It is worth to submit again that both categories are mentioned as Inspector in the recruitment rules. The earlier category is mentioned as the Inspectors of Central Excise and Land Customs.

Thanking you,

 

Yours sincerely,

                                                                                                                                                       

(HARPAL SINGH),

Secretary General.

Copy with the request for necessary action to:

1) The Finance Secretary, North Block, New Delhi.

2) The Secretary, DOPT, North Block, New Delhi.

3) The Chairman, CBIC, North Block, New Delhi.