2014 (3) TMI 57

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....oreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973 ('FERA') and imposing a penalty of Rs.25,000 under Section 50 thereof. 2. A show cause notice dated 25th June 1996 was issued to the Appellant stating that he had received a payment of Rs.5 lakhs by a pay order dated 27th October 1994 from a Non-Resident External ('NRE') Account No. 8 with State Bank of Indore, Green Park, New Delhi which was held by Smt. Sarita Mediratta resident of the United Kingdom. It was further stated that the Appellant had through his relative Shri Hari Ram Aggarwal made a payment of Rs.5,25,000 to Shri Sunil Narang, a resident of Malviya Nagar, New Delhi on behalf of Smt. Sarita Mediratta, a person resident outside India without obtaining an exemption from the Reserve Bank of....

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....t was observed that in a statement recorded on 15th April 1996 the Appellant admitted to having received Rs.5 lakhs by a pay order from the NRE Account of Smt. Mediratta through Shri Hari Ram Aggarwal after paying a premium of 5% over and above the said amount of Rs.5 lakhs. It was held that the Appellant admitted to not knowing either Smt. Mediratta or Shri Sunil Narang. In his statement dated 17th May 1996, Shri Hari Ram Aggarwal had admitted to having provided a pay order in the sum of Rs.5 lakhs in the garb of a gift to his relative Shri Suresh Kejriwal from the NRE Account of Smt. Mediratta. The adjudication order took note of a statement dated 10th May 1995 of Shri Sunil Narang wherein he stated that he used to arrange drafts from the....

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...., 1882 or Section 25(1) of the Indian Contract Act, 1872." The Appellant had no acquaintance with Shri R.K.Verma, NRI thus "the fact of love and affection between NRI and Appellant is ruled out". 8. The AT also held that certain facts were within the special knowledge of the Appellant which he was required to prove under Section 106 of the Evidence Act, 1872. Since normal human conduct did not permit gifting away of a huge sum of money to some unknown persons, a presumption could be drawn against the Appellant. Since the evidence on record raised questions which were not answered by the Appellant, he should be held guilty of the contravention of Section 9(1) (d) FERA. 9. This Court has heard the submissions of Mr. R.K.Handoo, learned ....

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..... Shri Narang is stated to have told Shri Aggarwal that he should be paid a 5% premium by the Appellant on receipt of which he would give the pay order to the Appellant. Shri Aggarwal gave the pay order to the Appellant on 27th October 1994 itself and on 28th October 1994 he got Rs.5,25,000 from the Appellant and gave the said amount to Shri Narang. 12. As far as the statement of the Appellant is concerned, he initially admitted to receiving the pay order of Rs.5 lakhs from the NRE Account of Smt. Mediratta and that the said pay order was made available by Shri Hari Ram Aggarwal on 5% premium as service charge. He stated that in lieu of the said pay order he gave "only Rs.5,25,000". He claimed not to know either Smt. Mediratta or Shri Su....