TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2016 (8) TMI 1383
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....Mr. M.A. Mujeeb Khan and Mrs. Masooda Yasmin are the directors of the said CHA Company and Mr. M.A. Mujeeb Khan is the qualified person under Regulation 9 of CHALR, 1984. Subsequently, M/s Tristar Express India Pvt Ltd., having their branch office also applied for, and were permitted to transact Customs clearance work in the jurisdiction of Mumbai Customs Zone, under regulation 9(2) of CHALR, 2004. Vide Order F.No. S/8-05/2013-14 Admn (CHA)/262 dated 10.05.2013, the Commissioner of Customs (General), Mumbai prohibited the appellant from working in Mumbai Customs Zones, with immediate effect under Regulation 21 of the CHALR, 2004 based on the investigation conducted by the officers of DRI, Mumbai Zonal Unit, in connection with smuggling of v....
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....e and forfeiture of the security amount deposited. Hence this appeal. 4. On behalf of appellant the Learned Counsel Sh. B. Venugopal reiterated the grounds of appeal and further submitted as follows: (i) No employee of the appellant was enquired in the course of adjudication so as to pass an order suspending the license of the appellant. (ii) No witnesses whose statements were recorded under section 108 of the Customs Act, except one Mr. Yashwant Sakharam Surve has spoken anything about the appellant. (iii) All the orders passed against the appellant were solely based on the statement of the said Mr. Yashwant Sakharam Surve. But for his statement there is no piece of evidence against the appellant to allege that he had violated the prov....
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....te the conclusions of the inquiry officer that Bills of Entry of M/s Pujan Overseas filed by CHA were subject matter of smuggling case wherein duty liability of Rs. 86,55,275/- has been admitted by Sh. Arvind Jain before the settlement Commission and that Sh. Mujeeb Khan was receiving consideration from Sh. Yashwanth Sakharam Surve for using his CHA license. 8. On a careful examination of the facts and evidence available before us it is seen that the conclusions arrived in the impugned order have been built on a stack of presumptive cards. In the first place, while a statement of Sh. Yashwanth Sakharam Surve claiming to have paid Rs. 2.5 lakhs to Sh. Mujeeb khan has been strongly relied upon in the order, it is strange that this averment o....
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....ment (nor is it the reasoning adopted by the Commissioner or the CESTAT) that this violation in itself is sufficiently grave so as to justify the extreme measure of revocation. Not any and every infraction of the CHA Regulations, either under Regulation 13 (Obligations of CHA) or elsewhere, leads to the revocation of license; rather, in line with a proportionality analysis, only grave and serious violations justify revocation. In other cases, suspension for an adequate period of time (resulting in loss of business and income) suffices, both as a punishment for the infraction and as a deterrent to future violations. For the punishment to be proportional to the violation, revocation of the license under Rule 20(1) can only be justified in the....
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....ensee. In OTA Kandla, too, mens rea (i.e. knowledge) of the licensee was established. By a statement of the petitioner under Section 108, Customs Act, followed by the inquiry, it was clear that the licensee was aware that the consignment contained gypseous alabaster, a prohibited substance, but nonetheless, participated in its release from the Kandla Port. In Santon Shipping (supra), the adjudicating authority came to the conclusion that the fraud in this case has been committed in so many consignments over a long period of time and the same could not have happened without the connivance of the CHA. The revocation of the license was again informed by the fact of connivance (i.e. mens rea as to the infraction) of the CHA. In Eagle Transport ....