Customs law did not extend to fasten liability on a foreign...

Customs law did not extend to fasten liability on a foreign exporter for pre-amendment transactions where the exporter was outside India and the relevant amendment to Section 1 operated only prospectively from 29 March 2018. The Act placed post-import compliance and responsibility on the Indian importer, and no legal basis was shown to make the foreign exporter answer for the importers' alleged misdeclaration. Penalties under Sections 112 and 114AA also failed because there was no evidence of any act, omission, abetment, false declaration, or other conduct by the petitioners that satisfied the statutory requirements. On that basis, the show-cause notices were quashed as without jurisdiction.

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