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Pandey said Buxar Police will now have to “take up the case differently”
as the boy cannot face trial.
The RTI activist had earlier told The Indian Express that his son had
hitched a ride with two men from his village on a motorcycle, which was
stopped by police in the Rajpur area of Buxar. The police claimed they recovered
a country-made pistol from the activist’s son and a live cartridge each from the
two men.
The activist, who has been fighting corruption at the local level, had al-
leged that his son was framed by the people he was trying to unmask, and that
they were in league with the local police.
According to him, he had filed several RTI applications to uncover al-
leged irregularities in the Bihar Government’s Flagship Scheme, Saat Nischay (on
village roads, sanitation and drinking water), MNREGA and paddy procurement
by the Primary Agriculture Credit Society under the Cooperative Department.
[Source : The Indian Express, New Delhi, dated 17-8-2020]

Panel to decide ceiling rates for exporters — Duty relief
The Government has formed a Committee to determine ceiling rates un-
der the Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) Scheme.
The panel has been tasked with evolving a mechanism for calculation of duties at
the Central, State and local level which are borne by exporters so that they can be
refunded all the taxes paid on goods and services used in export but are current-
ly not being reimbursed under extant mechanisms.
In March, the Cabinet had approved the RoDTEP scheme with the pur-
pose that exporters would get the refunds in the form of transferable duty cred-
it/electronic scrip, which will be maintained in an electronic ledger. This would
ensure that exports are zero-rates, along wills refunds such as drawback and
IGST.
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Excise issued an order for for-
mation of the Committee on July 30. It would have three months to prepare its
main report after identification and prioritisation of sectors and items by the
Government is finalised.
Among the terms of reference of the Committee is the task of interacting
with Administrative Ministries, Export Promotion Councils, Commodity Boards,
trade bodies and other stakeholders so as to elicit their views on the ceiling rates
under the scheme.
The order said that the Committee would prepare modalities for calcu-
lating taxes on exports “including prior stage cumulative indirect taxes on goods
and services used in the production and of exported product and such indirect
duties/taxes/levies in respect of distribution of exported product and recom-
mend in their report the ceiling rates of RoDTEP for the items/sectors identified
by the Government”.
The Committee would be chaired by retired Former Secretary to the
Government G.K. Pillai with retired CBEC members Y.G. Parande and Gautam
Ray as other members.
At present, GST taxes and import/Customs duties for inputs required to
manufacture exported products are either exempted or refunded. However, cer-
EXCISE LAW TIMES  1st September 2020  47