TIOL-DDT 2836
02 05 2016
Monday

EXTRACTS from DDT 2821 06 04 2016,

CESTAT Needs a Regular President - Immediately:

PRESIDENT of the Tribunal Justice Goda Raghuram retired on 3rd March 2016 and since then, there is no President and the work in CESTAT has virtually come to a standstill or will soon.

As per Section 129C(1),  The powers and functions of the Appellate Tribunal may be exercised and discharged by  Benches constituted by the President  from amongst the members thereof.

As per Section 129(5),  A Vice-President shall exercise such of the powers and perform such of the functions of the President as may be delegated to him by the President by a general or special order in writing.

Now there is a sort of constitutional crisis in the CESTAT.

Only the President can constitute the Benches (Roster). A Vice-President can exercise  such powers as may be delegated by the President. There is no Vice-President for the Tribunal and of course as of now no President. So there is nobody to constitute the benches. Some new Members have joined but they cannot sit in the Benches in the absence of a roster by the President. Only those Benches constituted by Justice Raghuram before his retirement can function.

A sad state for a tribunal with over a lakh of cases pending to see Members sitting idle for want of a roster and a President.

The Government knew three years ago that Justice Raghuram would retire in March 2016. Couldn't they find a successor much before his retirement? In fact, it would be better to appoint the prospective President as Vice-President three months before the retirement of the President; allow him to have a feel of the Tribunal and then he can take over when the President retires.

Justice Raghuram had issued Rosters for various Benches (and Members) till 29th April 2016. So after 29th April, CESTAT was to virtually stop functioning as Roster could not be issued as there is no President and Benches could not be constituted as there would be no rosters. The Title of this piece would have been, “CESTAT Closed”.

Government had declared Mr. MV Ravindran, Member (Judicial) as Head of the Department by an Order dated 31.03.2016. But he is not President proper and he had no powers to issue the Roster.

The Government came to the rescue of CESTAT and issued an order dated 29.04.2016, with the approval of the Finance Minister authorizing Mr. Ravindran to prepare roster beyond 29.04.2016, till the joining of the new President.

The order reads as,

Shri M V Ravindran Member(Judicial) Customs, Central Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal, who had been designated as HoD, CESTAT vide order F.NoA­12026/02/2011-AdlC(CESTAT) dated 31.03.2016, is hereby authorized to prepare rosters for re-assigning the bench matters to the Members beyond 29.04.16 till the joining of new President CESTAT or until further orders, for smooth functioning of the tribunal.

This issues with the approval of Finance Minister.

A major crisis has been averted and all CESTAT Benches can function normally from Monday. Mr. Ravindran flew down to Delhi (from Mumbai where he is posted) on Saturday (30th April) and issued the roster for all the Benches. Now, even the newly appointed Technical Members who were sitting idle for want of a roster can be assigned to Benches and are in fact assigned.

While the last minute efforts of the government to salvage the CESTAT are laudable, it is surprising that they did not visualize this situation earlier and allowed so much confusion to be created and kept Members idle.

The Government should seriously consider suitably amending the Customs Act to avert such damaging situations in future. They can do it now itself while getting the Finance Bill 2016 enacted.

Department Of Revenue Order in F.No. A-12026/0,2/2011-Ad.IC (CESTAT)., Dated: April 29 2016

FTP - SCOMET List Amended

GOVERNMENT has amended the list of specified goods, services and technologies, i.e. Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies (SCOMET) that was notified vide Notification No.37 (RE-2012) /2009-2014 dated 14th March, 2013.

Notification No. 05 /(2015-2020)., Dated: April 29, 2016

FTP - Status Holder - Amendment

GOVERNMENT has amended the Paragraph 3.20(b) of Foreign Trade Policy 2015-20. The criteria for recognition as status holder has been changed w.e.f 01.04.2016 to the exports in the current and previous three financial years from the existing criteria of current and previous two financial years. For the Gems and Jewellery Sectors the existing criteria of export performance in the current and previous two years shall continue.

The amended Paragraph 3.20(b) of Foreign Trade Policy 2015-20 reads as:

All exporters of goods, services and technology having an import-export code (IEC) number shall be eligible for recognition as a status holder. Status recognition will depend on export performance. An applicant shall be categorized as status holder on achieving export performance during the current and previous three financial years (for Gems & Jewellery Sector the performance during the current and previous two financial years shall be considered for recognition as status holder) as indicated in paragraph 3.21 of Foreign Trade Policy. The export performance will be counted on the basis of FOB of export earning in free foreign exchange .

In DDT 2611 03. 06. 2015, we asked, FTP 2015-2020 - How to compute Export Performance for Status Holders?. We are yet to get the answer.

Notification No. 04/(2015-2020) ., Dated: April 29, 2016

Procedure for grant of Factory/Warehouse Stuffing Permission to Exporters 

IN order to enhance facilitation to the exporters and avoid any complication or confusion, JN Customs has issued a single consolidated Public Notice regarding procedure for grant of Letter of Factory Stuffing Permission LoFSP to the Exporters.

 A one-time Letter of Factory Stuffing Permission (LoFSP) will be issued. The LoFSP for stuffing of export goods at any approved premises, will be granted to all types of Exporters, holding a valid IEC, on submission of an application in the format ‘Annexure-B' and on receipt of : (a) NOC from jurisdictional Central Excise DC/AC, received in sealed cover, for deputing officers at the stuffing premises for supervision of examination & stuffing of the export goods and (b) Verification of genuineness, existence, suitability & functioning of exporter's premises as well as stuffing premises, from jurisdictional Central Excise DC/AC, received in sealed cover, in the formats ‘Annexure-C', ‘Annexure-D' & ‘Annexure-E', whether or not the applicant Exporter is registered with the jurisdictional Central Excise.

The LoFSP will be valid for : (i) Exports made from all Customs Stations/Ports in the country, (ii) All export goods having proper RITC, whether or not such goods are excisable, except prohibited goods as defined in sub section 33 of Section 2 of the Customs Act 1962 thereby meaning “any goods the import or export of which is subject to any prohibition under the Customs Act or any other law for the time being in force”. (iii) All exports under export promotion schemes, (iv) All exports under ‘Free Shipping Bills' (for Merchant Exporters only).

LoFSP may also be granted to the Exporters in case of non-receipt of requisite NOC& Verification reports from jurisdictional Central Excise authorities, at the time of submitting application, provided the Exporters are having a valid ‘Status Holder Certificate' i.e. Export/Star Trading House Certificate, issued by the DGFT.

In case of non-status holder Exporters exporting for the first time through JNCH/JNPT, the LoFSP will be granted only after receipt of requisite NOC& verification reports from the jurisdictional Central Excise DC/AC, in sealed cover.

A single LoFSP will be granted to the Exporter for stuffing at a particular premise; and the Exporter will have to apply separately for each additional stuffing premise, in case LoFSP is sought for stuffing at multiple premises.

LoFSP, valid for ONE day, may also be granted to Exporters, in case the export goods are bulky in nature which need to be stuffed directly into the export containers, under Central Excise/Customs supervision, at Railway Station/Yards, Private Warehouses & similar premises subject to submission of NOC from the stuffing premises and NOC from Central Excise/Customs authorities to examine the export goods & supervise the stuffing.

The Central Excise officer who supervised the examination and stuffing of the cargo in the stuffing premises as per the LoFSP shall mention his office contact Number and put his stamp indicating name, designation with complete office address in the examination report/ARE-1 and other documents.

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU CUSTOM HOUSE PUBLIC NOTICE NO.65 /2016., Dated: April 28, 2016

ER-1 in ACES - Stops with Superintendent

THE All India Association of Central Excise Gazetted Executive Officers has written to the CBEC that:

ER-1s are not moving above the level of Superintendent w.e.f. 01.04.16 in ACES. It gives the impression that the process of sending scrutinized ER-1s to the higher authorities through ACES has been withdrawn.

It is further submitted that no circular/instructions on the issue has been issued by any of the authorities to this effect. However as a result of this process, all the ER-1s are to be single handedly scrutinized by the Superintendents shouldering full responsibility

In view of the above, it is requested that the necessary corrective measures may kindly be taken in the matter as an early date.

The CAG in its Report No. 46 of 2015 (Performance Audit) had pointed out, "During test check of return module, it was noticed that the range superintendent scrutinised the CX returns marked for RnC chronologically. The Range Superintendent cannot scrutinise CX returns further unless AC/DC clears the scrutinised return in their system. Consequently, returns for subsequent months are also not available for scrutiny/review unless the return of previous month is cleared/scrutinised/reviewed by all the concerned authorities, resulting in manifold increase in pendency of returns."

The Board replied to CAG in October 2015 that based on the recommendations of Committee on RnC, it was decided to delink the AC/DC from the RnC work flow and the same is being taken up for implementation.

However, Audit further suggested that AC/DC may be required to test check returns reviewed by Superintendent randomly to ensure checks and balances.

Maybe Board has implemented its decision. And as far as scrutiny of returns is concerned, the Superintendent is the final authority.

What to do with Blackberry Phones given to Income Tax Officers?

THE Directorate of Income Tax (Infra) has been receiving representation from field formations with regard to treatment of Blackberry handset at the time of retirement or otherwise and accordingly a clarification is required with reference to Information, Technology, Procurement, Obsolescence and Disposal Policy - Blackberry handset issued as per the existing Project Tarang - Telecom Policy dated 29/11/2010.

It is clarified:

(i) In case the useful life of 4 years of a mobile handset has not been completed and the officer is leaving the organization on superannuation he is allowed the option of retaining the mobile handset on deposit of the residual value. The residual value of the mobile handset is calculated after allowing depreciation @25% per annum on straight line method.

(ii) In case the useful life of 4 years of a mobile handset has been completed and the officer is leaving the organization on superannuation he is allowed to retain the mobile handset ­without any payment as the residual value of the mobile handset becomes nil @ zero.

(iii) In any other case the above referred mobile handset may be treated as condemned and unusable as a scrap having the zero value having outlived its utility or useful life

(iv) However it may be reiterated that the SIM cards issued to the concerned officers may be returned to the relevant Nodal Officer, Project Tarang.

CBDT Directorate of Infrastructure F. No. DIT(Infra)/Project Tarang/Mobile Handset Policy/2015-16., Dated: April 28 2016

Increase in Tariff Values of all items other than poppy seeds, gold and areca nuts

GOVERNMENT  has increased the tariff values of all the items except poppy seeds, gold and areca nuts.

Notification No. 60/2016-CUSTOMS (N.T.)., Dated: April 29, 2016

Until Tomorrow with more DDT

Have a nice day.

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