TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1986 (12) TMI 214
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....y provision of the Customs Act against them. 3. The fact is that they had imported a consignment of drugs and medicines by ship M.V. TAIAN. 4. After the ship had berthed, some miscreants stole the goods and were trying to take them away in a boat when they were apprehended by the CISF. 5.  In the meanwhile, they had filed the bill of entry and got it processed but when they went to docks they were told by the C.P.T. that the goods had shortlanded. The CISF subsequently handed over the goods to the Customs and the Customs authorities issued show cause notice to the steamer agents and a number of importers whose goods were found on boat including the appellant. 6. They approached the Custom House with the request th....
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....y of violation of any provision of the Customs Act. However, he felt that since the order of confiscation had already been upheld and the option to pay the fine in lieu of confiscation is required to be given to the owners, therefore, he imposed a fine on the importers including the present appellants. 11. It was his submission that since they were not held as guilty at any stage of the proceedings including both initial and remand proceedings, therefore, it was incorrect to impose any fine. Indeed, they were not liable to pay any fine. It was also his submission that as the goods have already been released by the Customs before the first Order-in-Original was passed and the goods were not actually available for confiscation at the ....
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.... was required to act within the ambit of this limited remand. The appellant has come up in appeal against this order of the Additional Collector. He, however, agrees that the appellants were not held as guilty of violation of any provision of the Customs Act, 1962 but the goods were held as liable to confiscation in terms of Section 111(h) and (j) referred to above. It was his contention that action against goods is action in rem and not action in personam, and under Section 125 redemption fine could only be imposed on the owner of the goods. Therefore, keeping the Board's observation in mind the Additional Collector has passed the present order. 14. He would also like to clarify that the goods were ordered to be released on payment....
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....ll to remember, in this connection, that imposition of fine, in effect, amounts to awarding a punishment to the person held liable to pay the same and we can hold a person as liable to punishment only if we find him responsible for some act of omission or commission with reference to the law and the goods in question. In our view, to impose or inflict punishment (directly or indirectly) on a person who is not guilty is against all canons of natural justice and fair play. Even otherwise, merely because the goods were liable to confiscation it was not always necessary to impose a fine in lieu of confiscation; in the same way, as merely because a penalty was imposable under a provision, it was not necessary that it must always be imposed. The ....
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....nt that actually the reason for remand by the Board is not very clear. As far as we can see, there was hardly any justification for the order of remand itself, but we are refraining from going into this aspect further as the Board's order is not in appeal before us (as rightly pointed out by the learned JDR). 23. We further observe that the learned Counsel for the appellant was also correct in pointing out that the goods had already been cleared in the normal course by the Customs and had been taken over by then before the de novo proceedings (arising out of the Board's order of remand) and therefore, during this proceedings the Additional Collector could not have confiscated the goods which were no longer available for confiscation....