Adjudication of Central Excise and Service Tax Cases booked by DGCEI

CIRCULAR NO. 1000/7/2015-CX

NEW DELHI, Dat­ed: March 03, 2015

Atten­tion is invit­ed to Cir­cu­lar No. 994/01/2015 dat­ed 10.02.2015 on the above sub­ject. Ref­er­ence has since been received from DGCEI regard­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties in imple­ment­ing the instruc­tions. The issue has been exam­ined and it has been decid­ed to sub­sti­tute para­graph 5 of the said Cir­cu­lar dat­ed 10.02.2015 with the fol­low­ing paragraph -

“5. To assign cas­es for adju­di­ca­tion amongst the Addi­tion­al Direc­tor Gen­er­al (Adju­di­ca­tion) and the field Com­mis­sion­ers, fol­low­ing gen­er­al guide­lines may be followed:-

(i) Cas­es includ­ing cas­es per­tain­ing to the juris­dic­tion of mul­ti­ple Com­mis­sion­er­ates, where the duty involved is more than ₹ 5 crore shall be adju­di­cat­ed by the ADG (Adju­di­ca­tion). How­ev­er in case of large pen­den­cy of cas­es or there being a vacan­cy in the rank of ADG (Adju­di­ca­tion), Direc­tor Gen­er­al, CEI may assign cas­es involv­ing duty of more than ₹ 5 crore to the field Com­mis­sion­ers fol­low­ing claus­es (iv) and (v) of the guidelines.

(ii) Direc­tor Gen­er­al, CEI may issue gen­er­al orders assign­ing the show cause notices involv­ing duty of more than ₹ 5 crore issued by the spec­i­fied Zon­al Units and/or the DGCEI Head­quar­ters to a par­tic­u­lar ADG (Adju­di­ca­tion).

(iii) Where ADG (Adju­di­ca­tion) is the adju­di­cat­ing author­i­ty in one of the cas­es involv­ing iden­ti­cal issue or com­mon evi­dences, the Direc­tor Gen­er­al, CEI may assign all such cas­es to that ADG (Adju­di­ca­tion).

(iv) Cas­es to be adju­di­cat­ed by the exec­u­tive Com­mis­sion­er, when per­tain­ing to juris­dic­tion of one exec­u­tive Com­mis­sion­er of Cen­tral Excise, shall be adju­di­cat­ed by the said exec­u­tive Com­mis­sion­er of the Cen­tral Excise.

(v) Cas­es to be adju­di­cat­ed by the exec­u­tive Com­mis­sion­ers, when per­tain­ing to juris­dic­tion of mul­ti­ple Com­mis­sion­er­ates, shall be adju­di­cat­ed by the Com­mis­sion­er in whose juris­dic­tion, the noticee from whom the high­est demand of duty has been made, falls. In these cas­es, an order shall be issued by the Direc­tor Gen­er­al, CEI exer­cis­ing the pow­ers of the Board, assign­ing appro­pri­ate juris­dic­tion to the exec­u­tive Com­mis­sion­er for the pur­pos­es of adju­di­ca­tion of the iden­ti­fied case.

(vi) Show Cause Notices issued pri­or to 1^st March, 2015 shall con­tin­ue to be adju­di­cat­ed by the Com­mis­sion­er before whom the adju­di­ca­tion pro­ceed­ings are con­tin­u­ing unless the Direc­tor Gen­er­al, CEI issues orders appoint­ing a new adju­di­cat­ing author­i­ty in terms of the guide­lines above or where Board appoints a new adju­di­cat­ing author­i­ty on the basis of pro­pos­al of DGCEI.

(vii) Where DGCEI pro­pos­es appoint­ment of an adju­di­cat­ing author­i­ty not in con­for­mi­ty with the above guide­lines, DGCEI shall for­ward such pro­pos­al to the Board.

(viii) Cas­es to be adju­di­cat­ed by the offi­cers below the rank of Com­mis­sion­er may be adju­di­cat­ed only by the field offi­cers in the exec­u­tive Com­mis­sion­er­ates and the above guide­lines shall apply mutatis-mutandis.”

2. Dif­fi­cul­ty, if any in imple­ment­ing this cir­cu­lar may be brought to the notice of the Board. Hin­di ver­sion shall follow.

F. No. 208/03/2012-CX‑6

(Rohan)

Under Sec­re­tary (CX‑6)