The finance ministry has decided to expedite adjudication of 532 high-value cases, involving a total service tax demand of Rs 38,000 crore. These are in the insurance, civil aviation and consumer durables sectors, among others, in Delhi and Mumbai. The aim is to bring these to closure by the end of next month. It has also started a manual scrutiny of small service taxpayers. In the former exercise, only those high-value service tax cases would be considered where the tax demand raised is at least Rs 10 crore, officials said. Closure of these cases could give the government a revenue gain of more than Rs 20,000 crore, it is estimated. The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) believes the exercise would ease the business environment. "It is important to bring closure to cases. You can't keep them hanging," said a senior official. Most of these cases are pending for the past two to three years.