Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) Chairman Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, has called for disposing of legacy adjudication cases.
According to the Budget document, at the end of fiscal year 2022-23, there were more than ₹29,000 crore stuck in cases (pending for 1 year to more than 10 years) which are not under dispute. These are the cases where demand was raised but not realised because of a number of issues such as no assets or inadequate assets for recovery, assessees are not traceable, etc. At the same time over 1.73-lakh crore cases are stuck in disputes pending for over a decade.
In a communication, Agarwal drew attention to pending legacy adjudication cases. “Now, it is an opportune moment to clean the slate and resolve these long standing issues in an expeditious manner,” he said. The cases are related mainly to service tax and central excise duty while customs duty has a share too. It may be noted that service tax and central excise duty (except for petrol diesel, crude, aviation turbine fuel and compressed natural gas) have been subsumed into goods and services tax, implemented from July 1, 2017.
“The Board has been highlighting the need to liquidate the legacy matter every now and then. I expect the zones to diligently address the pendency at their end,” he said.