The Principal Chief Controller of Accounts, Central Board of Excise and Customs has recently brought to the notice of the Board a case of fraud in payment of Central Excise duty by an assessee in Bombay involving a sum of Rs. 1.44 lakhs. In this case modus operandi adopted by the assessee was to forge the amounts written on duplicate copy of Challans by interpolating figures and amounts written on duplicate copies and then use these forged challans for getting the goods cleared. Thus, whereas amounts deposited in the Bank were less, the assessee claimed higher amounts having been paid by submitting forged copy of duplicate challans to the Central Excise Authorities.

2.     While conducting bank reconciliation, the Pay & Accounts Office noticed that the duplicate copy of challan submitted by the assessee did not tally with copy of challan received by them through the focal bank. The fraud could have been detected earlier if the Range Officers had verified the duplicate copies of challans with reference to the quadruplicate copies received by them. However, as the reconciliation had remained in arrears, the fraud could not be detected in time.

3.     In this connection, your attention is invited to Circular No. 15/90-CX-8 (F.No. 263/ 9/90-CX-8 whereby a time-limit of six months has been prescribed for completion of reconciliation of accounts by the Accounts Officers/ Range Officers.

4.     It is therefore, emphasised that the reconciliation of accounts, particularly matching of duplicate copies of challans with Quadruplicate copies received by them at the Range Officers level, should be completed within the prescribed time -limit.