TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2019 (7) TMI 1087
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....ein, who is the Managing Director of M/s.Surana Corporation Ltd. is that, the petitioner had entered into a conspiracy agreement with certain named and unknown persons and thereby procured smuggled foreign gold items, without any record of procurement. In the statement given by the petitioner, it is recorded that the petitioner had gone through the voluntary statement of three of his staffs and obtained the signatures therein. He had also stated that the smuggled gold were dealt by them. 3. It is the submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner that there was no admission with regard to the charge of conspiracy as against the petitioner herein and therefore he had sought for permission to cross examine these three witnesses, which ....
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....ave said that the recovery was made from the petitioner, necessarily an opportunity requires to be given for the cross examination of the witnesses as regards the place at which the recovery was made. But in the facts of that case, the Supreme Court held that the failure to give the petitioner therein an opportunity to cross examine the witnesses is not violative of the principles of natural justice. 7. In the instant case, the specific charge against the petitioner was a conspiracy agreement with certain named and unknown persons for the purpose of procuring smuggled gold and this aspect of conspiracy was not admitted by the petitioner in his statement recorded before the authorities. The issue as to whether there was a conspiracy or not ....
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....learned Single Judge of this Court reported in 2017 (357) E.L.T. 104 (Mad.) in the case of Deepak Kumar Vrs. Principal Commissioner of Customs, Chennai, to justify that the denial of cross examination would not amount to the violation of principles of natural justice. In the said case, the learned Judge of this Court had found as follows: "13. True that the petitioner has also raised the ground of violation of principles of natural justice. According to him, the refusal to cross-examine those two persons, namely, Thameem Ansari and Syed Rehman has resulted in violation of principles of natural justice. I do not think that the petitioner is justified in raising such objection now, especially, when the order passed by the Adjudicating Autho....
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....ross examination has been rejected, then it is for the next fact finding authority to go into the same as to whether such denial is justifiable or not. 12. In the instant case, when the petitioner has sought for a request to cross examine, the same came to be denied. Thereafter, the petitioner had also raised this before the Appellate Authority, which was also rejected for the reasons already discussed. As such, the facts involved in the aforesaid case is totally in contra to the issue in the present writ petition and thereby the proposition laid down therein, may not be applicable to the present case. 13. For all the foregoing reasons, this Court is of the affirmed view that the petitioner can be granted an opportunity to cross examine t....