DEPARTMENTAL REVENUE

General

87. (a) In the case of departmental revenue other than public works and forest revenue (e.g., land revenue, excise, stamps, jail receipts, registration receipts, etc.), the duty of seeing that the dues of Government are regularly paid into the treasury rests with the departmental controlling officers, who receive from their subordinates accounts and returns claiming credit for so much paid into the Treasury and to whom the Accountant General sends, for comparison with these extracts from his accounts showing the amounts brought to credit in them.

(b) If any wrong credits are thus brought to the notice of the controlling officer, he should at once inform the Accountant General with a view to the correction of the accounts. If any credits are claimed but not found in the accounts, it is usually more convenient to make inquiries first of the departmental officer.

NOTE—It is essential that the departmental controlling officer’s account should not be complied from returns prepared by the Treasury. But the Treasury Officer is in some cases required to verify returns for submission to department controlling officers.

88. The manner in which departmental controlling officers are to scrutinize the record and collection of the Government revenues is explained in the following sub-rules.

I—Receipts against regular fixed demands

Periodical returns of receipts are submitted to the head of the department concerned who will check them in the manner prescribed in paragraph 87.

II—Receipts against variable demands where the demand and the collection are not necessarily simultaneous

In these case (e.g. criminal fines) the demand is not always realized nor is the amount to be collected known till it is ordered. But the demand is recorded by a responsible Government servant and, if proper registers are kept up, there can be no difficulty in exercising the same scrutiny as is required in the case of fixed demands.

III—Receipts against variable demands where the demand and the collection are practically simultaneous

In the case of receipts from the sale of waste-paper, and the like the registered demand and the collections are practically one and the same, and the difficulty is to ensure that all amounts demandable and actually collected are entered in the registers.

In these cases the checks to be exercised are—

(1) vigilant inspection on the part of controlling officer;

(2) the use of printed counterfoil receipt books;

(3) periodical comparison between these books and registers.

89. The requirements stated in paragraph 88 should be given effect to by the adoption of the following procedure ;

(i) To ensure that all collections are being paid regularly into the Treasury or Sub-Treasury, the muharrir or other officer immediately responsible for the collections will keep the receipts (dakhilas or chalans) for amounts so paid in proper files. Inspecting officers will compare the entries in the counterfoils in the printed counterfoil receipt books with those in the register of collections, and with any original receipts they may be able to obtain from the persons to whom they were issued. They will check the totals in the register of collections, and will see that the amount shown as collected agrees with the total of the amounts paid into the Treasury as shown in the dakhilas and the cash in the hands of the muharrir or other Government servant.

(ii) The comparison by inspecting officers will be made from the time of the last inspection, and the accounts should be inspected on the spot at least once every year. The selection of inspecting officers, rests with heads of departments and district officers, as the case may be. Heads of departments and district officers when themselves inspecting accounts of departmental receipts may be unable to make the inspection herein prescribed in its entirety, but they should check the collections register in part by comparison with the counterfoil receipts and should see that the total of the register of receipts agrees with the total of the dakhilas and the balance in hand.

(iii) In many cases items for realization vary, especially when they are the subject of sale by auctions. The muharrir should therefore keep the orders sanctioning sale in a proper file and the inspecting officers should check the register with them to see that the proper amounts have been entered.

90. In view of the very considerable amount of labour involved in a complete reconciliation of figures of revenue furnished by the collecting officers with those booked in the Accountant General’s Office, which is not commensurate with the results obtained, a difference in the total receipts under a minor or detailed head, as the case may be, between the departmental and the Accounts Office figures to the extent of 3 per cent of the departmental figures or Rs. 2,000 whichever is less, may be ignored.