RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, Nov 22: Jharkhand governor Ramesh Bais on Tuesday returned The Jharkhand Excise (Amendment) Bill, 2022 sent to him for his assent after it was passed by the State Legislative Assembly during the monsoon session.
The governor has sent the bill with eight suggestions to the state government.
According to the Governor’s suggestion, there is no justification for adding sub-section 3 of section-7 under which there is a provision of constitution of flying squad and it is wrong to give immunity to office bearers of the agency from legal action in case of any illegality.
List of suggestions:
1. In sub-section-3 of Section-7, a provision has been made for the formation of flying squad, while already the excise department has full power to constitute flying squad, task force, mobile force etc. of the officials as per the requirement. Therefore, there is no justification for adding sub-section-3 of section-7 again.
2. In the bill in question, the agency and employees authorized by the corporation have been held responsible for unconstitutional acts in the cases of licenses operated by the corporation under the control of the state government. At present, the shops for the sale of liquor set for the state government are operated by the selected agencies through the Beverage Corporation. If any kind of irregularity is found from the provision in question, only the employees of the agency who operate the said point of sale will be held responsible, while this entire accountability should be of the concerned agency and it should be monitored regularly from the level of the corporation. It is also necessary, but with the amendment made, only the local employees will be held responsible for the unconstitutional acts. This arrangement can be seen as an attempt to protect the office bearers of the corporation and the higher officials of the agencies from criminal/ unconstitutional acts.
3. New provision has been added in Section-52, in which provision has been made to pay compensation along with punishment. It is worth considering that this system is different from the payment of compensation. Therefore, it would be appropriate that provision should be made in separate sections for determination of punishment and compensation.
4. It would be appropriate to keep the provisions of punishment made in Section-55 (A) in line with the provisions of Section-47. The provisions of new sections 55(D) and 55(E) are required to be reviewed in the light of Section-106 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
5. Presently Beverage Corporation is working as the licensee. In Section-57, provision for punishment has been made for the acts of the licensee or his servant. These provisions set aside the office bearers of the Corporation to be held liable for unconstitutional acts only for the local employees of the authorized agency. Obviously, this type of statutory protection reduces the accountability of the original licensee corporation.
6. In Section-79 (IV), in case of collection of liquor up to 20 liters, the accused can be freed on his own bond as per the discretion of the officer. Clearly, this provision can mean that any person can store up to 20 liters of liquor, which does not seem appropriate.
7. Generally, review is done at the level of the Revenue Board in relation to the excise policy and provisions of the Act, because the Revenue Board has been given certain powers under the Excise Act. No consultation of the Board of Revenue appears to have been taken in the matters of the amendment bill in question.
8. In connection with the implementation of the new excise policy in the state, the department had made claims of increase in excise revenue, but in the first 6 months, a continuous decrease in excise revenue is being seen. Due to less direct accountability of departmental and corporation officials in the Excise Act, monitoring will be further weakened and with the promotion of illegal acts, further reduction in revenue is also possible.
Therefore, the Governor has asked to reconsider the provisions of this bill and after reviewing the related provisions of other states, to consider revising the provisions of the bill after obtaining opinion from the Board of Revenue.
