TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2020 (8) TMI 183
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....following prayers: "1) Issue a writ and/or order and/or a direction including a writ in the nature of Mandamus directing the Respondent No.2 to entertain the appeals filed by the Petitioner by dispensing with the Petitioner requiring to deposit a further amount of INR 3,23,53,823/- being the balance of 7.5% of the assessed duty under Section 129 A of the Customs Act, 1962, in regard to the appeal against Order-in-Original No. No. 02/VKP(02) ADG (Adj.)/DRI/N.Delhi/2020-21 dated 28.04.2020, passed by Respondent No. 3 And/or 2) Issue a writ and/or order and/or a direction including a writ in the nature of Mandamus directing that the amount totaling To INR 16,00,00,000/- deposited by the Petitioner during the course of investi....
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....able orders under Section 129A of the Customs Act, 1962. 7. Previously, prior to amendments of the statute, applications for waiver of the pre-deposit were being preferred. Several litigations have travelled up to the Hon'ble Supreme Court upon such applications for waiver of pre-deposit. 8. With a view to avoid multiplicity of proceedings repeatedly in the Courts, Section 129E of the Act was amended by the Finance Act No.2 of 2014, with effect from 6th August 2014, to provide for mandatory pre-deposit of a fixed percentage of the duty demanded as a pre-condition to the CESTAT entertaining an appeal. For an appeal against the order passed by an officer of the rank of the Commissioner of Customs and below, the deposit amount has been f....
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....ted ten per cent of the duty, in case where duty or duty and penalty are in dispute, or penalty, where such penalty is in dispute, in pursuance of the decision or order appealed against: Provided that the amount required to be deposited under this section shall not exceed rupees ten crores: Provided further that the provisions of this section shall not apply to the stay applications and appeals pending before any appellate authority prior to the commencement of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 2014." (emphasis supplied) 10. In view of the aforesaid statutory provisions of the Act, it appears that the statue has now effected waiver of pre-deposit to the extent of 90% or 92.5% of the duty amount and has made it mandatory to deposit 7.5% or 10% ....
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.... which para 9 of the judgment of this Court observes as under: "9. Dealing with the specific question as to whether the amended Section 35F of the CE Act would apply to the case of the Assessee, the Allahabad High Court held that the words in the amended Section 35F indicated that on and after the date of its enforcement an Assessee in appeal was required to deposit the stipulated percentage of duty and if it failed to do so, the CESTAT shall not entertain the appeal. The amended Section 35F would, therefore, apply to all appeals filed on and from the date of the enforcement of the amended Section 35F of the CE Act......." (Emphasis supplied) 7. Taking stock of similar pronouncements in other cases, this Court proceeded....
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....unambiguous. It makes it clear that the amended provision would not apply to appeals and stay applications already "pending" before the appellate authority "prior to the commencement of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 2014", i.e. 6th August 2014. In other words, it would apply to all appeals filed on or after the said date. Therefore, what is to be seen is the date of filing of the appeal. If the appeal is filed on or after 6th August 2014 then the condition stipulated in the amended Section 129E of the Act has to be fulfilled for the appeal to be entertained. 12. The Court notes that as far as the present case is concerned, the CESTAT had to apply the second proviso to the amended Section 129E of the Act since the appeal before it was fi....
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....aid appeals are pending. 15. When we enquired from the learned counsel of the petitioner about the annual turnover of the petitioner, they were initially unable to respond. However, as nowadays, various types of data are available on the internet, since the petitioner could not respond, the search engine Google was used from where we found out that the annual turnover of the petitioner for the Financial Year 2018-19 was approximately Rs. 6000 Crores. This figure is now confirmed by the counsel for the petitioner. 16. In view of these facts, the amount to be deposited by the petitioner before CESTAT, New Delhi in their statutory appeal under the Customs Act, 1962 comes to Rs. 4.23 Crores for one appeal, which is 0.0705% of the total tu....