TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2022 (2) TMI 23
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....for a direction to respondent No.2 to consider the case of the petitioner and grant export incentives under MEIS or to reopen online portal to allow the petitioner to rectify the inadvertent error or to accept and process physical application to grant export incentives under MEIS to the petitioner. The petitioner, in the alternative has sought for a direction to respondent No.4 to recall and amend the shipping bills granting the MEIS benefit and to pass other order or orders as this Court deems fit. 2. Petitioner submits that he had sought for relaxation of the procedural requirements under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) of selecting 'Yes' in the rewards column in the shipping bills, as due to bonafide and inadver....
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....has referred to the relevant facts which are as follows: "They have stated that the shipping bills were filed by inadvertently ticking as "NO" instead of "YES" in the "reward" column of shipping bills. However, the intent of claiming the MEIS reward has been declared affirmatively, in writing, in the said shipping bills. Trade notice 24/2018 dated 21.12.2018 was issued by DGFT to collect information of such cases and consider the matter. Later on dated 10.01.2019 received an e-mail confirmation from the office of DGFT that shipping bills were not considered for granting the MEIS reward. Since, the intention of claiming reward was declared in affirmative, in wordings, inadvertent ticking of reward column as "NO" instead of "YES" while fili....
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....eme is such that any defect on the part of the petitioner cannot provide any window for reconsidering the claim made by the petitioner. 7. Learned counsel for the petitioner has however drawn attention to various judgments passed by the different High Courts wherein under similar factual matrix, the Courts have afforded relief and drawn attention to the judgment of the Orissa High Court in W.P.No. 29635/2020 in the case of Indian Metals and Ferro Alloys Limited vs. Director General of Foreign Trade and Others. 8. Sri. Amit Deshpande, learned counsel appearing for respondent No.4 has sought for time to file objections and has also opposed for grant of relief. 9. However, it must be noted that it is the order of the PRC that is in questio....
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....ourt in the judgment passed on 16.09.2021 in the case of Indian Metals (Supra) had an occasion to consider challenge to the orders passed by the PRC, whereby the reward under the MEIS scheme was denied as the shipping bills were not forwarded to the DGFT. The Orissa High Court after detailed consideration of the similar factual matrix has affirmed the views of the High Courts of Kerala, Madras and Bombay which provide for extension of benefit of MEIS scheme if the applicant has inadvertently typed "N" instead of "Y" in the shipping bill in the reward column. The Court refers to the judgments of the other High Courts from paragraph Nos. 18 to 22, and the said paragraphs are referred for the purpose of convenience as below: "18. In Anu Cash....
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.... of condoning such an omission, there cannot be a discrimination between exporters who made the claim within six months and those who have raised the claim after six months of introduction of the Schemes" 20. The above decisions appear to have attained finality. There no indication that any of the above decisions has been challenged before the Supreme Court. 21. To the same effect is the decision of the Madras High Court in Pasha International. v. The Commissioner of Customs and others (supra) and M/s .K.I. International Limited v. The Commissioner of Customs (Appeal-II) (supra). In the latter judgment, the shipping bills were for the period from 6th February, 2017 to 2nd January, 2018 and in Pasha International V. The Commissioner of....
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....e claim form on the DGFT portal and entered its declaration of intent as "N" (for No) instead of "Y" (for Yes) resulting in rejection of petitioner's claim for reward under MEIS. Except for this inadvertent mistake, petitioner is otherwise eligible and entitled to the reward under MEIS. In our considered opinion, such a procedural mistake on the part of petitioner should not deprive the petitioner from the benefit of the reward under MEIS. We note that a similar situation was in fact considered by the respondents in respect of shipping bills for the period 01.04.2015 to 31.05.2015 at the time of inception of the FTP, when exporters had inadvertently marked "N" in the "reward item box" and wished to seek MEIS benefit. Public Notice 47/20....