FM’s CONFERENCE

FM’s CONFERENCE

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will be holding the annual conference of Chief Commissioners and Director Generals of Customs, Central Excise & Service Tax, on 11^th and 12^th August at New Delhi.

The major focus during the two day annual conference would be on the accountability of assessing officers, non-filers monitoring system, data warehousing, search, seizure and surveys - study of effectiveness amongst others.

One of the technical sessions will be addressed by Supreme Court of India's senior advocate Shri. Harish Salve.

Are such conferences really helping the department in its day to day functioning?. How many orders passed by the Commissioner/ Additional Commissioner/ Joint Commissioner / Assistant Commissioner succeed legal scrutiny by the judiciary. Statistics speak loudly that the percentage of sustainability of the orders passed by these authorities in the judicial scrutiny is very low. The trend to confirm show cause notices without any legal basis continues rampantly in-spite of derogatory observations passed by the appellate authorities and Courts in many cases, which eventually leads to unproductive work. Such unproductive work only means waste of man hours and also waste of money. This trend is still continuing because there is no accountability on this count. 

Who detects the evasion case?

Who Investigates the evasion case?

Who prepares the Show cause notice?

Who assists in finilising the order in original?

Who prepares the appeal applications?

Who prepares the para wise comments to the writ petition?

Who attends and briefs the legal counsel?

Who attends commissioner appeal/tribunal / high court / supreme court?

Who initiates the recovery proceeding/attachment?

It is the Inspector and Superintendent. The quasi judicial authority plays a minimum role in the above mentioned work, as the entire work is entrusted on the Inspectors and Superintendents. Sometimes the Inspectors and Superintendents are called as pillars of the department. But has the department ever thought of imparting better training and educating these officers, who have all the while taken responsibility of doing such specialised work, which actually the respective quasi judicial authority is supposed to do. Has there been any effort to infuse the capability / capacity of these officers to explore and excel more. The truth is that the department is visible because of these two cadres but when it comes to their career prospects and infrastructure/ working conditions, it is pathetic and is only getting bad to worse. The Chief Commissioners conference is a ritual which happens once in a year but the issues which have been minuted in several conferences remain on paper only. Hope the present government extends its “Achchaa din Aayenge“ promise to this department also.

Can any DG / Chief Commissioner / Member / Chair person dare to present the ground reality of this department before the Hon’ble Finance Minister on the forthcoming Conference at New Delhi.

Can the so called pillars of the department hope for some concern by our Superiors, whom we have always seen as our Head of the Family.