Director General of Safeguards Renamed as ‘Director General of Anti-Profiteering’

In a significant move, the Central Government has renamed the Director General of Safeguards as “Director General of Anti-Profiteering.”

The DG Safeguards under the Customs law existed before GST law came into introduction and now the same is renamed as DG Anti Profiteering under GST law. As per an office order issued by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) yesterday, “the Department of Commerce appointing Director General Trade Remedies to exercise, inter alia, the powers of Director General (Safeguards) under Customs Tariff (Identification and Assessment of Safeguard Duty) Rules, 1997 and Customs Tariff (Transitional Product Specific Safeguard Duty) Rules, 2002, all functions relating to safeguard measures hitherto performed by the Directorate General of Safeguards under the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance stand transferred to the Directorate General of Trade Remedies.

Accordingly, the Directorate General of Safeguards is hereby renamed as the “Directorate General of Anti-profiteering”.” The functions of the Directorate General of Anti-profiteering shall include (a) Conduct of investigation to collect evidence necessary to determine whether the benefit of reduction in the rate of tax on any supply of goods or services or the benefit of input tax credit has been passed on to the recipient by way of commensurate reduction in prices, in terms of Section 171 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 and the rules made thereunder (b) Responsibility for coordinating anti-profiteering work with the National Anti-profiteering Authority, the Standing Committee and the State level Screening Committees.