Pande has had grave misgivings about the transfer orders of DRI ADGs in Mumbai and Calcutta, which were issued by the ministry on September 28.The crisis is more apparent in Mumbai, where the present incumbent, V Sridhar, (ADG, DRI) has not handed over charge to S D Khare, till date. S D Khare was holding the post of CCE (appeals), Mumbai, till the transfer orders came. Sumit Dattamajumdar, ADG, DRI Calcutta has been shifted to ADG NACEN, Calcutta, and his charge has been given to Rahul Goel.

The two key posts are in the news also because of the growing clout of anAhmedabad-based export house against whom the DRI offices in question have investigated cases of highly over-invoiced exports of compact discs.

Sources also claim that this group was in the forefront in managing transfers of inconvenient investigating officers with the help of elected representatives from Gujarat, where the group has extensive operations. In fact, several observers of the DRI attribute the shunting out of Sridhar and Dattamajumdar from their posts due to alleged political influence used by this one export house. While the Mumbai DRI has readied a show cause notice against this group, three SCN in Calcutta were issued during the tenure of Dattamajumdar. (The ADG at Mumbai controls Gujarat DRI also).

In fact, a game of musical chairs is on in the Customs and Excise Department in Mumbai where all new appointments to CCE Appeals are yet to take effect. While some are requesting that their assignments should not be changed, Sridhar, for instance, has not taken his new charge (CCE-A) for thereason stated earlier in the report.

The controversies over the transfers refuse to die, especially due to the marked identification of some senior officers with either the present chairman of the CBEC, S D Mohile or his predecessor, D S Solanki. So, even as Z B Nagarkar, ADG, NACEN, Mumbai, has been transferred as CCE-Appeals, Mumbai, (he is also yet to take charge), charges that he has been `rehabilitated' are rife in the department.

Nagarkar, meanwhile, has his own share of controversies, with his writ petition in Nagpur seeking to prosecute Solanki, Pande and a member of the Board during his charge os Commissioner, Central Excise, in Nagpur. The case is from his earlier tenure in Kandla when he suspended the licence of a clearing agent in a ball bearings import case. Nagarkar himself now faces a show cause notice for allegedly aiding and abetting the accused in that case.

Nagarkar says the statement recorded now against him to buttress the show cause was a counterblast to his writ petition seekingprosecution of Solanki and the others. While his petition was rejected by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court, he has moved the Supreme Court.

Nagarkar is also facing another inquiry under the CCS Conduct Rules, for having allegedly favoured one M/s Hari Vishnu Packaging in 1995 by not imposing the penalty though he had concluded that the company had evaded excise duty by clandestine manufacture and clearance of goods. In his defence, Nagarkar is reported to have stated that he did so because it would have exposed the order confirming duty to an adverse CEGAT order, knowing that the evidence against the party was weak. That matter also went through the labyrinth of the courts and Nagarkar is now in appeal in the Supreme Court.

Says he: ``Those who are telling you that I have been rehabilitated must remember that I was given charge of Nagpur, which is an executive charge, (after the ball bearings case which had begun in July 1993). While in Nagpur, I had asked for Mumbai, and it was given to me, evenif it was NACEN.''