Page 61 - ELT_1st August 2020_Vol 373_Part 3

2020 ] TIT-BITS A99

The gold smuggling case first surfaced when P.S. Sarith, a former em-
ployee of the UAE Consulate here, was arrested by the Customs on July 5 when
he was facilitating smuggling of 30 kg gold in diplomatic baggage to Thiruvan-
anthapuram from Dubai.
It turned murkier when the name of Swapna Suresh, a former employee
of the UAE Consulate here and employed with the State IT Department, sur-
faced. The case turned full circle when their links with Senior IAS Official M.
Sivasankar, who has been suspended and booted out from two key posts - Prin-
cipal Secretary to Vijayan and also the State IT Secretary, were unearthed.
It was the Cochin wing of the Customs which first broke the chain in the
explusive gold smuggling case as it has been found to be done under the name of
the UAE Consulate in the State Capital.
The present unit had announced that none will be spared and all those
who have the slightest of links with any of the accused would be called in for
taking statements.
Things went out of hand, when the call list of the accused gang surfaced
and in it were the names of several top notch people cutting across various seg-
ments.
[Source : Hans India Hyderabad, dated 24-7-2020]

Faceless assessment will upgrade Customs
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (C.B.I. & C.) recently
announced a plan to roll out pan-India faceless assessment by December 31,
2020. Faceless assessment is expected to be a game-changer in the post-COVID
era and could also become the new normal in Customs assessment. Faced with
the daunting task of processing over 1.25 crore export-import documents annual-
ly on a 24×7 basis while safeguarding Revenue and National Security, the C.B.I.
& C. has been taking innovative steps with its flagship programme, ‘Turant Cus-
toms’, to introduce next-generation reforms for ease of doing business.
What is ‘faceless assessment’? To understand this better, we need to go
back a few decades. Earlier, when goods were imported into India, they were
assessed for Customs Duty by the jurisdictional Customs officers on the basis of
physical documents. In 1985, mainframe computers were first used by the C.B.I.
& C. for import Cargo Documentation and automation of assessment. Upgrada-
tion to the more advanced computer systems was done from time-to-time to
render better services. Twenty years later, a technology-driven Risk Management
System (RMS) was deployed to enable most of the cargo to be cleared through a
green channel or with minimal checks, while interdicting risk-prone cargo for
assessment and examination. In 2011, the Customs Act was amended to intro-
duce the concept of self-assessment by importers/exporters themselves, along
with physical checks by Customs Officers.
With the introduction of faceless assessment, the Customs Department
proposes to replace physical interaction with an online interface for verification
of self-assessment. Two Faceless Assessment Groups (FAGs) have been consti-
tuted in Chennai and Bengaluru.

EXCISE LAW TIMES  1st August 2020  61