Missing appeal file – CIC asks Central Excise Commissioner (Appeals)

Missing appeal file – CIC asks Central Excise Commissioner (Appeals) to reconstruct file An assessee filed four appeals before the Commissioner (Appeals), Kolkata in the year 1992. During the last 16 years, the office of the Commissioner (Appeals) had been bifurcated and trifurcated several times and the appellant should now fall under the jurisdiction of the Commissioner (Appeals), Ranchi. Not being able to know what happened to his appeals, the poor assessee approached the Central Information Commission, which was very sympathetic and observed, "Commission understands the anguish and the frustration of the appellant whose appeals were never resolved even though they were properly filed. An appeal under the Central Excise Act is a quasi-judicial action and it is altogether surprising as to how these never received the requisite attention, much less resolution for more than 16 years. However, at this distance of time, it will be useless to cry over the spilt milk." So the Commission passed the following order, "Considering the peculiar circumstances of this case, the matter is remitted back to Dr.G.Sreekumar Menon , Commissioner (Appeals), Central Excise, Ranchi with a direction to give a hearing to the appellant and initiate the process of reconstructing the records and to provide a proper response to the appellant's RTI-queries. Since this process is likely to be slow, the Commissioner (Appeals) may take 90 days from the date of the receipt of this order to complete the work." Now, can the CIC give directions to a Commissioner (Appeals) to reconstruct a file and then give a reply to the applicant? DDT spoke to several senior Central Excise officers and they were all aghast that the CIC could give such directions and were unanimous in their view that the CIC cannot assume such jurisdiction which it did not possess. DDT also spoke to a veteran journalist in the taxation field who wholeheartedly supported the CIC order and said that if the information which ought to have been there was not there, the Commission was right in directing that the information had to be recreated. Incidentally, in this case, the Department was represented by the Chief Commissioner. Chief Commissioner, as declared by the Supreme Court in the case mentioned above, is a very senior officer. And why did this very senior officer choose to represent the Department's case before the Commission? Absolutely nothing wrong – but they leave important cases with Crores of Revenue involved, to Inspectors and Assistant Commissioners before the Settlement Commission and CESTAT!

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