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Timely submission of replies to Draft Audit Paras
Circular
No. 535 dated 7th June 2000
The
following instructions/ letters have been issued by the Board prescribing the
format and the time schedule for furnishing replies/ comments to Draft Audit
Paras.
i.
Circular No. 77/68 dated 6.12.68 issued from file F. No. 36/58/68-CX.
ii.
D.O.F. No. 240/1/93-CX.7 dated 26.2.1993
iii.
Circular No. 44410/99-CX dt. 12.3.1993 issued from file F. No.
210/01/99-CX.6
iv.
Covering letters under which DAPs are sent to the Commissioners
2.
The Ministry is required to send its comments to the C&AG within six
weeks. On receipt of the DAP�s from the C&AG they are immediately sent to
the Jurisdictional Commissioners of Central Excise for furnishing their
reply/comments within 4 weeks. This leaves the Ministry barely 14 days time to
examine the comments of the Commissioner, take policy decision if required and
send the comments to the C&AG. It has however been observed that the
Commissioners are not assigning due importance/urgency to the DAPs. It may be
noted that the issues involved in the DAPs get scrutinized in the
Commissionerates, earlier, at there occasions/ levels, namely,
i.
Range Officer/Divisional Officer, at the stage of Audit Query of Audit
Memo.
ii.
Divisional Officer again, at the stage of Local Area Report (LAR) or
Inspection Report (IR), and
iii.
Commissioner, at the stage of Statement of Facts.
Thus
when a DAP is received in the Commissionerate it should not take more than 10
days or so to send the report/reply to the Ministry.
3.
Further, in a number of cases the replies from the Commissioners are not
complete indicating that it has not received the personal attention of the
Commissioner. In such cases further clarification/reports have to be sought by
the Ministry thereby further delaying Ministry�s comments to the C&AG.
4.
If the comments on the DAP are not sent to the C&AG in time; or the
comments sent are incomplete or unsatisfactory, the C&AG converts them into
Audit Paras which are then placed before the Parliament in the form of
C&AG�s Audit Report for the relevant year. Once the Audit Paras (converted
from DAPs) are received from the C&AG the same drill of obtaining the
Commissioner�s comments/ Action Taken Notes (ATN�s) has to be gone through,
the matter then processed at the Ministry�s level and a final ATN sent to the
C&AG. If the reports of the Commissioners, at the DAP stage itself, are sent
in time and complete in all respects, it would be possible for the Ministry also
to send the comments on the DAP in time which in turn would most likely result
in less number of DAPs being converted into APs. The C&AG normally waits
till 15th November each year for receiving comments on all DAP�s.
Replies sent after these dates are not considered.
5.
It has therefore been decided by the Board that henceforth the
Commissioners would be held personally responsible for timely and accurate
furnishing of comments on DAPs. Further, by 10th November each year,
the Commissioners will send a certificate to the Board to the effect that no
comments/further reports in respect of DAPs relating to that particular year are
pending at their end.
6.
The first two lots of forty DAPs each, for the year 1999-2000, have
already been despatched to the Commissioners in April/ June, 2000. These
instructions, including the earlier instructions of the Board, should kept in
mind while furnishing replies/ comments on the DAPs.
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