IMMUNITY, BUT NOT AT THE COST OF INTEGRITY…

          Several senior officers will be relieved today to join their new posting in the various benches of CESTAT, as per the office order dated 24-Feb-2016, issued by The Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue, as given below :-

S. No.	Name of Officer	Place of Posting
1.	Shri. B. B. Prasad	Chandigarh
2.	Shri. V. Padmanabhan	New Delhi
3.	Shri. M. M. Damodhar	Hyderabad
4.	Shri. Y. D. Banga	Chennai
5.	Shri. A. G. R. Shakkarwar	Allahabad
6.	Shri. Devender Singh	Mumbai

The Board has taken a long time to finalise the names for posting them as Member(Tech.) in various CESTAT benches.  As it is a judicial posting, the age of retirement increases to 62 years, & their pay also gets enhanced to the HAG+ scale of Rs. 75500-80000/- with effect from the date they assume the charge.

There were many contenders amongst the Senior officers, whose names were not included in the final list. Among others, Shri. R. Sekhar, presently serving as Principal Commissioner (AR) at CESTAT, Mumbai, was one such officer, who was having high hopes of being selected as Member(T) and being posted to Chennai bench of CESTAT.

In his previous tenure as Commissioner, Service Tax-II Commissionerate, Mumbai, he has not only harassed officers working under him but also the members of the trade !!  In his long tenure of almost 3 years, the stress levels among the lower officers had reached its peak and several officers suffered heart-attacks and some even passed away. Many of the officers who suffered medical complications, opted for VRS, due to his style of functioning. To create a terrorizing atmosphere, he issued charge-sheets to many officers on flimsy grounds, where there is no revenue-loss and involving no dereliction of duty. Majority of the charge-sheets issued were on taking-of-leave matters, as he used to routinely deny leave to officers.

It is learnt that the same threat is now being used in CESTAT, Mumbai.

Also, it was highly un-ethical on the part of the Board to have posted him to CESTAT, Mumbai, where he would be defending the same cases which he has dropped as Commissioner, Service Tax !!   Board should now take cognizance of this fact and move him out from CESTAT, Mumbai, immediately at least for the sake of probity & jurisprudence.

CESTAT benches have been created to give justice to the trade where interpretations of the tax administrator differs from that of the assessee. It should not used as a parking place for Senior Officers to be retained in the same station and for pocketing a big amount given for preparation & analyzing of cases, without even presenting a single case before the CESTAT. Several tainted officers are posted presently in CESTAT, Mumbai, and similar may be the case in other benches also.

Recently, the Parliamentary Committee on Estimates, on their visit to Mumbai, raised the issue of low rate of success-ratio in the number of appeals filed by the Department at various judicial fora like the SC (9%), HC (14%) & CESTAT (6%) during the last 5 years. The real cause appears to be the casual manner of approving SCNs by the senior officers, which do not stand the test of legal scrutiny at higher judicial foras. They do not appear to be answerable for these defects in the approval of SCNs, but point a finger at the lower officers. Thereafter, they enjoy immunity as a quasi-judicial officer. Ultimately, for these lapses at various stages, the Department suffers & revenue is lost. 

The present Administration is issuing instructions and obtaining information on each transfer & postings and ensuring that they are not posted to sensitive posts for more than three years, as a measure of probity. In each Tribunal, where a large number of revenue cases are dealt, involving crores of rupees, then the officers posted to these locations should also be subject to background checks for their integrity and ability.

The decision of the Board that Shri R. Sekar is not fit for posting as a Member(T) in any of the CESTAT benches, but still allowing him to continue working as AR in CESTAT, Mumbai, appears to be contradictory.

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