2019 (11) TMI 795

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....HRI.ALEXANDER JOSEPH MARKOS AND SHRI.SHARAD JOSEPH KODANTHARA For The Respondents : SRI.P.R.SREEJITH, SC, CENTRAL BOARD OF EXCISE AND CUSTOMSADV.SMT.DAYASINDHU SHREEHARI N.S., CGC AND ADV.SRI.JAISHANKER V. NAIR, CGC JUDGMENT As both these writ petitions involve a common issue, they are taken up together for consideration and disposed by this common judgment. 2. The petitioners are exporters, who seek to avail the benefit of the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme [MEIS] as envisaged under the Foreign Trade Policy, 2015-20. As per paragraph 3.04 of the Foreign Trade Policy, the entitlement under the MEIS Scheme is described as follows: "3.04 Entitlement under MEIS Exports of notified goods/products with ITC (H....

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.... uploading the details to the web portal of the Central Government. Unfortunately, in a further column which required them to check the appropriate box with regard to the intention to claim reward in respect of the export consignment, the petitioner omitted to check the box stating "Yes", and on account of that, the system recorded the default setting, which indicated "No". That this was an inadvertent mistake occasioned by the petitioner will be apparent from a perusal of the shipping bill produced as Ext.P4 in W.P.(C).No.25339/2019, which shows the words "WE INTEND TO CLAIM REWARD UNDER MEIS" as also "No" in the box against the query with regard to intention to claim the MEIS benefit. The claim of the petitioners for the benefit of the re....

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....ed his intention to avail the benefit of the Export Promotion Scheme. Under such circumstances, I am of the view that the denial of a claim for export benefit could not have been done in a mechanical manner merely because there was a technical lapse on the part of the exporter concerned in not checking a particular box in the web portal, more so when there was sufficient indication from the other details entered therein that pointed to the exporter's intention to claim the reward. I therefore dispose these writ petitions with a direction to the respondents, including the additional 5th respondent in both the writ petitions, to consider the claim of the petitioners for export benefit, afresh, in the light of the observations in this j....