CBEC chief’s appointment challenged

The Court has now fixed July 10 as the next date for hearing on the case. However, it did not give any stay order so Verma on Wednesday assumed office as CBEC Chairman. Finance Ministry sources said that Prasad is technically correct. It was in 1964 that the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) was bifurcated into two — CBEC and CBDT. It was then notified that only a Member in the Board can become its Chairman. The notification is valid even today and the Government has not made any amendment in it.

In fact, sources said that many years ago when V V Badami was made chairman of the CBDT even though he was not a member, the government first appointed him as Member of CBDT and then made him its Chairman, all in the same day.

Officials point out that the same should have been done in case Verma was to be made the CBEC Chief. Sources said that to save itself from this slip, the Government wanted to amend the notification when it sensed of Prasad’s move. But since the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister are out of the country it could not be done that fast. The ACC consists of PM, the Home Minister and the Minister of the concerned administrative ministry.

Sources also said that Verma’s name was inducted into the list at the very last moment, so the slip may have occurred because of this. The original list which was to be moved for consideration had the names of A M Prasad, D Chakravarty, Sukumar Shankar and P N Malhotra, all present Members of the CBEC. It was at the very last moment that one of the key officers involved in the whole process inducted Verma’s name.

Verma, incidentally, was originally a member of the CBEC but was shifted out around a year ago. Verma, otherwise is senior to Prasad. He is a 1964 batch Indian Customs and Central Excise officer, whereas Prasad is a 1965 batch officer of the same service.