CBIC Revamp Slow, Thousands of IRS Posts Vacant

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes (CBIC) has seen a spate of retirements in the last few months, leaving open five vacancies, with only one member and chairman remaining. Finally, three new members were appointed on August 3. Earlier this year, about 15 officers had been called for interviews by the Cabinet Secretary as part of procedure, now mandated by the Committee of Secretaries, for onward transmission to Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. It took about six months from that point to appointment. Again, seniority played a big role. One of the members has just six months left for retirement.

The CBIC is the apex organisation for the IRS (Customs & Central Excise), comprising 5,600 IRS officers and over 52,500 superintendents and inspectors. Across all these cadres, there are a huge number of vacancies. The IRS cadre is said to be short by over 2,000 officers, while other executive levels have over 18,000 vacancies.

It is alleged that the Central Boards of Revenue Act, 1963, which constituted the Central Board of Excise and Customs. Section 4 of the Act laid down the procedure for the functioning of the board but these are not laid out so accountability suffers. The central government may make rules for the purpose of regulating the transaction of business by each board, and every order made or act done in accordance with such rules shall be deemed to be the order or act, as the case may be, of the board.