The Law of Karma winks at the CBIC

 

The CBIC is at a very crucial point in determining its own future.

It is an issue which will have an effect upon the morale of the staff and moral standing of the CBIC in showing its commitment to its cadres down the lane, on par with their sibling in the same department, the CBDT.

It is with regard to the restoration of pay scales for Inspector and Superintendent cadres in the CBIC at least with effect from 1.1.96.

On this issue, though it was the cadre of Inspectors of Central Excise who have been agitating the issue in various fora and through various channels right from the early 1990s, got an order from the Jabalpur CAT in 1995 and got favourable recommendations from the V CPC they thereafter forged unity with their colleagues in the CBDT and got a High Power Committee recommendation in their favour and got it implemented from 2004.  

However, subsequent attempts to get it implemented with effect from 1.1.96, even as their counterparts in various other departments like the Posts, Railways and Organized Accounts Services had marched ahead, has not found favour with the CBIC even as the CBDT has found a way to extend the benefit to 80% of these cadres in their department. 

Even when the matter was referred to the Departmental Anomaly Committee, the CBDT was prepared to recommend the matter to the Committee but the CBIC was not prepared to do so.  However, due to the recommendation of the CBDT, the matter came up before the Anomaly Committee in 2018 and the Chairman directed the issue to be examined.

When this matter has been before the Departmental Anomaly Committee of the Department of Revenue, and the Chairman had asked for the examination of the issue, a decision by an Anomaly Committee constituted for this very issue, at the behest of a decision by the Hon'ble High Court of Kolkatta, was argued by the Counsel of the CBIC before the Hon'ble High Court of Telengana, as applicable only to the CBDT.  The Hon'ble High Court of Telengana however emphatically held that the decision of the Departmental Anomaly Committee in the Department of Revenue is applicable to CBDT as well as CBIC.  Though to us this is a matter of common sense, the Hon'ble High Court had to state this.  But the CBIC was not to be satisfied.

And very typically, when the orders of the Hon'ble High Courts of Kolkatta and Mumbai in respect of cases filed by the officers and Association respectively of Income Tax department were accepted by the CBDT, in the matter of the order by the Hon'ble High Court of Telengana in the case filed by the Officers of the Central Excise (CGST) the CBIC decided to travel to the Hon'ble Supreme Court and filed an SLP. 

Yet, even after the SLP was dismissed, the CBIC thought it fit to implement it only to the 'petitioners' of Hyderabad and subsequently to those who have independently approached other Tribunals.

The CBIC and the DOE, by taking a stand of applying the rationale of Court Orders in respect of rulings on statue or notifications or circulars pertaining to the pay scale of a cadre as 'in personam', and thus forcing the members of the cadre to get it from the hands of the Court separately, have handed over the powers of the Executive to decide on matters of fixing of pay scale to the cadres in the GOI, to the Judiciary.

Presently even when the same matter is before the very same High Court of Mumbai, which had granted the relief to the members of the ITGOA (Income Tax Gazetted Officers' Association), the CBIC is not prepared to argue its case, in the case filed long back by the AICEIA (All India Central Excise Inspectors Association).  By conceding before the High Court that all those who are and have been members of the AICEIA could also be given the same benefit as done in the case of ITGOA, much relief could be given to these cadres. That is if the CBIC really feels that DOE is in the way of granting the benefit to its cadres. It is still not late in the day.

Those running the CBIC cannot be seen to put the blame on the DoE and 'the system', when their counterparts in the CBDT have found a way.  Those in the CBIC, who are in command, shall not forget that they have undermined the dignity of the very foundation of the Executive structure of the department - the very foundation upon which they have built up their edifice, the very cadres whom they depended upon to write their orders, whose very sweat and blood had contributed to their own bread and butter; for their encomiums, awards and what not.  It is those very persons of the cadre who bore them on their shoulders who have been showed aside, to fight their own cause before various Tribunals or Courts. Many of them are retired and even dead.  Those who retired in 1996 (then at the age of 58) would be 87 years of age, if alive today. And it is for these people, who carried the flag of the department through out their careers that this agony is meted out.

The CBIC will have to reap the outcome of this karma, if it does not immediately realise it.  The pendulum sways back and forth.

The present Chairman and the Member (Administration) are known to be very sensitive and sympathetic Officers.  Before their retirement, if they could do something to change the course of the outlook of the CBIC in such sensitive matters, we will be saved.

This is the prayer of not only the Inspectors of the CBIC and those promoted from that cadre, but also those who have retired and the family members of those who have died, who would all be rightfully be entitled for the pay scales and consequential dignity with effect from 1.1.96.