2017 (9) TMI 1084

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....on of duty demanded in respect of imports made prior to April 2011. 2. In this connection, we are informed that the Jurisdiction of the D.R.I. Officers to act as 'proper officer' for demand proceedings under the Customs Act, 1962 has been a subject matter of dispute before the High Courts. It has been ruled by Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the case of Mangli Implex Vs. Union of India - 2016 (335) E.L.T. 605 (Del.) that the D.R.I. Officers are not competent to issue the show cause notice for the imports made prior to 08.04.2011. In similar such cases, various Benches of the Tribunal such as, Delhi, Chennai & Calcutta have set aside the impugned orders and remanded the matter to the original authority for deciding the issue of jurisdiction a....

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.... July 6, 2011, the Additional Director General, DRI was prospectively appointed as 'proper officer' for the purpose of Section 28 of the Customs Act. Hence, from 06.07.2011 ADG-DRI has been empowered to issue demand notice under Section 28. 8. Subsequently, sub-section 11 was inserted under section 28 of the Customs (Amendment and Validation) Act, 2011 dated 16.9.2011, assigning the functions of proper officers to various DRI officers with retrospective effect. 9. Later on, i.e. for the period subsequent to the amendment, the matter i.e. the DRI officers having the proper jurisdiction to issue the SCN or not had came up before the Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the case of Mangali Impex Vs. Union of India [2016 335 ELT 605 De....

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....ngli Impex Vs. UOI which is stayed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court reported as 2016 (339) ELT A 49 (SC). Finally the Hon'ble High Court has granted liberty to the petitioner by observing that "petitioner is permitted to review the challenge depending on the outcome of the appeals filed by the UOI in the Supreme Court against the judgment of the Court in the case of Mangli Impex Ltd." 13. By following the ratio laid down by the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi in the case of BSNL (Supra) as well as by considering totality of facts and circumstances, we set aside the impugned order and remand the matter to the original adjudicating authority to first decide the issue of jurisdiction after the availability of Hon'ble Supreme Court d....