Union of India and Ors. …Respondents With Civil Appeal Nos. 12461248 of 2022 With Civil Appeal Nos. 12441245 of 2022 With Civil Appeal No. 1249 of 2022 With Civil Appeal No. 1250 of 2022 With Civil Appeal Nos. 12511265 of 2022 Signature Not Verified Digitally signed by Sanjay Kumar Date: 2022.03.10 12:43:09 IST Reason: 1 With Civil Appeal No. 1266 of 2022 And With Civil Appeal No. 1267 of 2022 2 JUDGMENT Dr Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, J A Facts....................................................................................................................4 B Relevant circulars and notifications ..............................................................10 B.1 Executive Instructions issued by DoPT ..................................................10 B.2 Circulars issued by Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance .......14 C Submissions.....................................................................................................19 D Analysis ............................................................................................................26 3 PART A A Facts 1 A Division Bench of the High Court of Kerala dealt with a batch of petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution challenging the orders of the Central Administrative Tribunal on the issue of the withdrawal of InterCommissionerate Transfers 1. The High Court has come to the conclusion that the Central Excise and Customs Commissionerates Inspector (Central Excise, Preventive Officer and Examiner) Group ‘B’ Posts Recruitment Rules 2016 2 do not contain any provision for ICTs and, on the contrary, stipulate that each Cadre Controlling Authority 3 will have its own separate cadre, unless otherwise directed by the Central Board of Excise and Customs. The High Court held that ICTs would violate the unique identity of each cadre envisaged under Rule 5 of RR 2016 and hence the circular withdrawing ICTs is not invalid. The judgment of the High Court has given rise to the batch of civil appeals. 2 The appellants are Inspectors of the Central Excise and Land Customs or, as the case may be, Goods and Services Tax Administration, who were allocated to different CCAs. Section 4 of the Customs Act 1962 provides that the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs 4 may appoint such persons as it thinks fit to be officers of customs. A similar provision is contained in Section 4 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act 2017 5, which states that: 1 “ICT” 2 “Recruitment Rules 2016” or “RR 2016” 3 “CCA” 4 “CBIC” 5 “CGST Act” 4 PART A “4. (1) The Board may, in addition to the officers as may be notified by the Government under section 3, appoint such persons as it may think fit to be the officers under this Act. (2) Without prejudice to the provisions of subsection (1), the Board may, by order, authorise any officer referred to in clauses (a) to (h) of section 3 to appoint officers of central tax below the rank of Assistant Commissioner of central tax for the administration of this Act.” The expression ‘Board’ is defined in Section 2(16) of the CGST Act as the Central Board of Excise and Customs 6 constituted under the Central Boards of Revenue Act 1963. 3 On 29 November 2002, the Central Excise and Land Customs Department Inspector (Group C posts) Recruitment Rul