TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2001 (6) TMI 488
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....rs/consignees of the goods also. 2. The facts giving rise to these appeals may briefly be stated as under : 3. On 8-3-99 acting on specific information the officers of the Headquarter of Preventive Branch of the New Custom House searched the office-cum-godown of the company M/s. Bombay Bangalore Freight Carriers Ltd. [hereinafter referred to as company (appellant no. 1)] in the presence of their Manager, Ashwani kumar (appellant no. 2) which resulted in the recovery of bearings of foreign origin valued at Rs. 36,74,000/-. On demand Ashwani Kumar (appellant no. 2) produced GRs and invoices accompanying the goods. In those documents the names of the consignors and consignees were recorded which had been detailed in para 2 of the i....
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.... duty. Only the present appellants appeared and contested the notice by alleging that they did not had any knowledge about the contents of the consignments containing the seized goods and that those consignments were sent to them from Mumbai. They denied their liability for imposition of any penalty on them. 5. The learned Commissioner through the impugned order after rejecting the version of the appellants, ordered the complete confiscation of the goods and imposed penalty of Rs. 5 lakhs each on them. He also imposed penalty of Rs. 5 lakhs on the consignors/consignees. 6. The present appeals have been filed only by the appellants for challenging the imposition of penalty of Rs. 5 lakhs each on them. 7. The learned counsel....
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....n the presence of two independent witnesses had admitted the recovery of the goods from the premises of the company. It also remains undisputed that he could not produce any valid document showing the legal import/acquisition of the seized goods before the officers of the Preventive Branch of New Custom House who conducted the search. He, no doubt, supplied the names and addresses of the consignors/consignees but the same were not only found to be incomplete but also fictitious. None out of those consignors/consignees during the adjudication proceedings came forward to claim the goods inspite of issuing many notices to them. 11. The plea of the appellants that they did not know the contents of the consignments which contained the seiz....