Export document amendment for drawback allowed where departmental record mix-up caused rejection.

Where a drawback claim was rejected because the export papers were mixed up in the department, the Tribunal held that the exporter should not suffer for the departmental mistake. It treated the admitted inadvertence in the records as sufficient reason to allow amendment of the Bill of Export so the drawback claim could be pursued. The rejection order was therefore unsustainable, and relief was granted to enable correction of the export document and consideration of the drawback benefit.

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Issues: Whether the appellant was entitled to amendment of the Bill of Export for claiming drawback, and whether the rejection order was liable to be set aside in view of the admitted inadvertence in the departmental records.

Analysis: The matter came before the Tribunal as a transferred revision application under Section 131B(2) of the Customs Act, 1962. The record showed that the appeal had been rejected on the footing that there was no request for amendment of the Bill of Export and no supporting particulars for the drawback claim. On examination of the original documents, the departmental representative that there had been inadvertence and that the papers had been mixed up. The Tribunal treated the situation as comparable to the earlier parallel order and held that the appellant should not suffer because of the departmental mistake.

Conclusion: The appellant was entitled to amend the Bill of Export for claiming drawback, and the rejection order could not be sustained.

Final Conclusion: Relief was granted to enable the appellant to pursue the drawback claim through amendment of the export document.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a rejection of drawback-related relief is shown to have resulted from departmental inadvertence or mix-up of records, the exporter should be permitted to correct the export document and claim the benefit accordingly.

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