Subject:  Service Tax – Monetary limits and powers of adjudication of officers of Central Excise in relation to Service Tax Rules, 1994 – regarding

              Kindly refer to Board’s Circular Nos. 11/5/96 dated 22^nd April, 1996 and 30/1/2000 dated 6^th June, 2000 on the above          mentioned subject. 

1.       Any orders passed by Addl. Commissioners/Joint Commissioners can neither be revised (u/s 84) nor can it be appealed before any appellate authority (u/s 85 and u/s 86).  Therefore, in order to avoid problems of appeals against the orders passed by Joint Commissioners /Additional Commissioners/ Commissioners of Central Excise, an amendment was carried out in section 73 of the Finance Act, 1994 on 16.7.2001, which limited the authority to ACs /DCs of Central Excise for issuing the Show Cause Notices for short levy of service tax and also determination of such short levy by way of adjudication.

2.       In view of the above, the matter of power of adjudication of officers of Central Excise in relation to Service Tax Rules, 1994 was re-examined and it has now been decided by the Board that adjudication of all the cases relating to Service Tax may be carried out only by the jurisdictional ACs /DCs of the Central Excise as per section 73 of the Finance Act, 1994.