2016 (8) TMI 874

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....imposed penalties upon the appellants. 2. Sh. S. P. Majumdar (Advocate) appearing for the appellants Sh. S. K. Das and Sh. Dipak Kumar Sardar argued that these appellants are the officers of Customs and other two appeals clubbed with these appeals are also the officers of Customs and a penalty of Rs. 5000/- each has been imposed upon them under Sec 117 of the Customs Act 1962. That these officers have examined the export consignments of Plastic Ball Pens under nine Bills of export filed by M/s Promising Exports Ltd. That a detailed investigation was done and show cause notice was issued, interalia, to the present appellants that goods examined by them were not exported to Bangladesh & they were liable to penalty for negligence. Learned A....

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....-23 of the OIO dt 20/8/2007 passed by the Adjudicating authority that this point was specifically taken by the appellant before the adjudicating authority but Adjudicating authority has not given any findings on this issue. It is observed that CESTAT Bangalore in the case of CC & CE Hyderabad-II Vs Rajiv Kumar Agarwal (Supra) has taken following view on the applicability of Sec 155 (2) of the Customs Act 1962 :-    " 6.1No doubt, the above allegations are? quite serious in nature. However, the Adjudicating Authority has dropped the proceedings on two grounds :- (i) The proceedings are time barred in view of Section 155(2) of the Customs Act. (ii) The acts of omission and commission of the respondents hav....

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....g of the intended proceeding and of the cause thereof, or after the expiration of three months from the accrual of such cause." A reading of the said Act shows that the protection under the above section is applicable to all legal proceedings. Further, if protection to officers against proceedings in courts can be given, there is no reason why such a protection cannot be given to proceedings before quasi judicial authorities. Therefore, we do not find much substance in the Revenue s contention. Further, the Tribunal, in the case of M.I. Khan, has held that protection under Section 155 of the Customs Act is available even in respect of adjudication proceedings. Therefore, the Commissioner was correct in holding that the protection u....