CBIC has introduce “Document Identification Number” (DIN) for the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC). Same Concept has already introduced by Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).
The Board in exercise of its power under section 168(1) of the CGST Act, 2017/ Section 37B of the Central Excise Act, 1944 directs that no search authorization, summons, arrest memo, inspection notices and letters issued in the course of any enquiry shall be issued by any officer under the Board to a taxpayer or any other person, on or after the 8th day of November, 2019 without a computer-generated Document Identification Number (DIN) being duly quoted prominently in the body of such communication.
Communication Without DIN
The Board also directs that any specified communication which does not bear the electronically generated DIN and is not covered by the exceptions cases, shall be treated as invalid and shall be deemed to have never been issued
The Board in exercise of its power under section 168(1) of the CGST Act, 2017/ Section 37B of the Central Excise Act, 1944 directs that no search authorization, summons, arrest memo, inspection notices and letters issued in the course of any enquiry shall be issued by any officer under the Board to a taxpayer or any other person, on or after the 8th day of November, 2019 without a computer-generated Document Identification Number (DIN) being duly quoted prominently in the body of such communication.
Communication Without DIN in Exceptional Cases
Whereas DIN is a mandatory requirement, in exceptional circumstances communications may be issued without an auto generated DIN.
However, this exception is to be made only after recording the reasons in writing in the concerned file. Also, such communication shall expressly state that it has been issued without a DIN. The exigent situations in which a communication may be issued without the electronically generated DIN are as follows:-
(i) when there are technical difficulties in generating the electronic DIN, or
(ii) when communication regarding investigation/enquiry, verification etc. is required to issued at short notice or in urgent situations and the authorized officer is outside the office in the discharge of his official duties
Regularized Communication Without DIN in Exceptional Cases Within 15 Days
Any communication issued without an electronically generated DIN in the exigencies shall be regularized within 15 working days of its issuance, by:
(i) obtaining the post facto approval of the immediate superior officer as regards the justification of issuing the communication without the electronically generated DIN;
(ii) mandatorily electronically generating the DIN after post facto approval; and
(iii) printing the electronically generated pro-forma bearing the DIN and filing it in the concerned file.
Where to Check Authentication of Notice/ Communication
The genuineness of the communication can be ascertained by recipient (public) by entering the CBIC- DIN for that communication in a window VERIFY CBIC-DIN on CBIC’s website http://cbic.gov.in. Only in those cases where the DIN entered is valid, information about the office that issued that communication and the date of generation of its DIN would be displayed on the screen.
Pattern of DIN
The format of the DIN shall be CBIC-YYYY MM ZCDR NNNNNN where,
(a) YYYY denotes the calendar year in which the DIN is generated,
(b) MM denotes the calendar month in which the DIN is generated,
(c) ZCDR denotes the Zone-Commissionerate-Division-Range Code of the field formation/Directorate of the authorized user generating the DIN,
(d) NNNNNN denotes 6 digit alpha-numeric system generated random number.