The adjudication powers of different Federal Excise Officers shall be as follows:–

(i) Additional Collector : Cases involving evasion of excise duty (principal amount) or erroneous refund of excise duty, without limit.

(ii) Deputy Collector : Cases involving evasion of excise duty (principal amount) or erroneous refund of excise duty provided the amount of duty involved is not less than one million rupees but does not exceed two million five hundred thousand rupees.

(iii) Assistant Collector : Cases involving evasion of excise duty (principal amount) or erroneous refund of excise duty provided the amount of duty involved is not less than ten thousand rupees but does not exceed one million rupees.

(iv) Superintendent or Principal Appraiser : Cases involving evasion of excise duty (principal amount) or erroneous refund of excise duty provided the amount of duty involved does not exceed ten thousand rupees:

Provided that all cases of contravention of Act or rules where no evasion of duty is involved shall be adjudicated by the Deputy Collector of the respective Collectorate of Federal Excise.