2002 (8) TMI 315

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.... 10 advance licences and cleared by it without payment of duty in terms of exemption contained in Notification 203/92 had been sold by it to 26 firms. It therefore proposed to recover duty from the importer, proposed penalty on it, its director and on the alleged buyers of the product and the custom house agent who was concerned with the clearance of the goods. 2. The notice was made answerable to the Commissioner of Customs at Kandla. This Commissioner, however, did not pass any orders on the matter. The seven hearings that were scheduled by him were all adjourned for one reason or another. Subsequently, by order dated 24-8-2000, the Chief Commissioner of Customs at Ahmedabad passed orders directing the Commissioner of Customs at A....

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....the matter, the persons who were issued notice would have been within their rights in asking the Commissioner at Ahmedabad to hear them once again. We are therefore really concerned with the one adjournment that the Commissioner at Ahmedabad refused this appellant. We are of the view that the reason advanced for the adjournment, that the counsel was busy with the Tribunal in a matter which was already fixed, was not preverse or unacceptable not to have been granted. We therefore think that these appellants before us should be given an opportunity by the Commissioner of being heard. 5. The departmental representative then points out that the other 27 appellants had been heard by the Commissioner at Kandla and there is no justificatio....