Supreme Court Confirms Section 114A of Customs Act: Penalty Equals Either Duty or Interest, Not Both.

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

Full Text of the Document

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

....Imposition of penalty equivalent to duty and interest u/s 114A of Customs Act - The expression used is 'or' which is disjunctive between duty or interest and further use of expression as the case may be clearly suggest that aforesaid provision refers to two different persons and two different situations viz., one in which a person will be liable to duty and in other he may be liable to pay interest only and provides that in both the situations the person liable to duty would be liable to penalty equal to duty and person liable to interest would be liable to penalty equal to interest. Therefore, in view of law laid down by constitution bench of Supreme Court, the word 'or' cannot be interpreted as 'and'. - HC....