Vide Circular No.1049 / 37 / 2016 – CX dated 29.09.2016, the Central Board of Excise and Customs (“the Board”) has suppressed the specified Circulars issued regarding adjudication of cases in Central Excise and Service Tax. The CBEC has also issued the instructions to revise the existing monetary limits for adjudication and to allow greater flexibility in allocation of cases amongst adjudicating authorities. The details of Circulars, which have been suppressed by the CBEC are as under:

(i)         Circular No. 752 / 68 / 2003 – CX dated 01.10.2003;

(ii)        Circular No. 806 / 3 / 2005 – CX dated 12.01.2005;

(iii)       Circular No. 865 / 3 / 2008 – CX dated 19.02.2008;

(iv)      Circular No. 922 / 12 / 2010 – CX dated 18.05.2010;

(v)       Circular No. 957 / 18 / 2011 – CX dated 01.10.2003

(vi)      Circular No. 80 / 1 / 2005 – CX dated 10.08.2005;

(vii)      Circular No. 99 / 2 / 2008 – CX dated 11.03.2008;

(viii)     Circular No. 130 / 12 / 2010 – CX dated 20.09.2010

Powers under Central Excise & Service Tax

As we know the adjudication of confiscation and penalty by the Central Excise Officer is provided in Section 33 of the Central Excise Act, 1944. The Central Excise officers are empowered to adjudicate the Show Cause Notice demanding duty short paid or not paid and erroneously refunded (Section 11A). Similar powers exists in Service Tax under Section 73 and Section 83A of the Finance Act, 1994.

Monetary Limit as per the new Circular

Vide the Circular dated 29.09.2016, it has been directed that the powers of adjudication both in Central Excise and Service Tax shall be exercised, based on the monetary limit of the duty / tax/ credit involved in a case as under:

Sl. No.	Central Excise Officer	Monetary Limits of duty/ tax/ credit demand for Central Excise and Service Tax
1.	Superintendent	Not exceeding Rupees Ten lakhs
2.	Deputy/ Assistant Commissioner	Above Ten Lakhs but not exceeding Rupees Fifty Lakhs
3.	Additional/ Joint Commissioner	Above Fifty Lakhs but not exceeding Rupees Two Crore
4.	Commissioner	Without limit i.e. cases exceeding rupees two crores

Other important points 

(i) Cases involving taxability, classification, valuation and extended period of limitation shall be kept out of the purview of adjudication by Superintendents. Such cases, upto rupees 10 Lakhs, shall also be adjudicated by the Deputy Commissioner/ Assistant Commissioner in addition to the cases exceeding rupees 10 Lakhs but not exceeding rupees 50 lakh.

(ii) Refund matters (including rebate), shall be adjudicated by the Deputy Commissioner/ Assistant Commissioner without any monetary limit

(iii) In case different show cause notices have been issued on the same issue answerable to different adjudicating authorities, Show Cause Notices involving the same issue shall be adjudicated by the adjudicating authority competent to decide the case involving the highest amount of duty.

(iv) Every adjudicating authority of Central Excise and Service Tax in the field shall endeavour to adjudicate 100 cases in a year

The aforesaid directions shall apply to such adjudications where the personal hearing is yet to be given. Therefore, in all cases where the personal hearing has been completed, the adjudicating authority before which the hearing was attended will pass orders.

Cases, which have been remanded back for de novo adjudication, shall be decided by an authority of the rank, which passed the said remanded order.

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