Shipping bill amendment under Customs law requires record verification, not a circular-based time bar, before EPCG-linked deletion claims.

Amendment of shipping bills under section 149 of the Customs Act was held to depend on verification of the export records, and the absence of a statutory time limit could not be substituted by a one-month limit in a departmental circular. The tribunal accepted that the export transactions and available original shipping bills were relevant evidence, but directed confirmation from DGFT and Customs records on whether the 191 shipping bills had already been used to discharge EPCG export obligation. The rejection of amendment was therefore set aside, and the matter was remanded for amendment of the shipping bills and consequential consideration of Focus Market Scheme scrips if verification supported the claim.

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Issues: Whether the shipping bills could be amended under section 149 of the Customs Act, 1962 by deleting the EPCG licence number, and whether the appellants were entitled to consequential consideration for Focus Market Scheme benefit.

Analysis: The amendment sought was based on the contention that the exports covered by the 191 shipping bills had not been used for discharge of export obligation under the EPCG licences, which had already been redeemed. The absence of a statutory time limit in section 149 could not be replaced by the one-month restriction contained in the departmental circular. The authority also noted that the export transactions themselves constituted relevant proof, that original shipping bills had been produced for substantial numbers of the bills, and that the exact extent to which the disputed shipping bills had been counted towards EPCG export obligation required verification from the DGFT and Customs records. In these circumstances, the rejection of amendment was not sustainable without such verification.

Conclusion: The appeal was allowed, the impugned order was set aside, and the matter was remanded for amendment of the 191 shipping bills after verification that they had not been utilized for fulfillment of EPCG export obligation, with consequential issuance of FMS scrips if the verification was satisfied.

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