1984 (11) TMI 334

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....s House Clearing Agents licence. 2. This appeal coming up for orders upon perusing the records and upon hearing the arguments of Shri E.S. Govindan, Advocate for the appellant and upon hearing the arguments of Shri V. Ramachandran, Senior Departmental Representative for the respondent, the Tribunal makes the following Order. 3. By Order No. VIII/13/9/78 C. 2 (Cus.)/, dated 3-3-82 the Collector of Customs & Central Excise, Bangalore rejected a request from M/s. Peirce Leslie India Ltd. (appellant herein) for renewal of a Custom House Agents Licence No. 2/77 for the period beginning 4-2-81 on a short point that any application for renewal of the licence should have been submitted before the date of its expiry; in this case the....

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....y the licensee during the period when the licence was operative. There is no other provision in the Rules for rejection of an application for renewal. It will be noted from the copy of the licence submitted that initially it was issued for a period of one year with effect from 3-2-77; thereafter it was renewed for the period 4-2-78 to 3-2-81 on 10-7-78 the date of renewal is subsequent to the date of expiry of the licence. It would, therefore, be seen that the practice of the Custom House is not to refuse to renew the licence merely because it had expired. As valid reasons have been given for the delay in submitting the application for renewal, the counsel for the appellant urged that the licence ought to have been renewed for the period be....

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.... that when a fresh licence has been issued for a period of one year, renewal thereof has to be applied for before the expiry of the period of one year, when it will be renewed for a period of three years. Renewals thereafter have naturally to be on the basis of a particular licence. There is considerable strength in the stand of the department that a person who desires continuation of an existing licence should apply for it before the expiry of the licence itself. It would, of course, be desirable that the actual renewal is also made before the expiry of the licence so that there is no interim period when a legal and valid document namely, a licence is not in the hands of the licence-holder. However, in cases where an application has been m....