TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2022 (6) TMI 546
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....ated 31.03.2016 passed by the Joint Commissioner of Customs and rejected the appellant's appeal. Hence this appeal. 2. The facts of the case, in brief, are that the appellant signed a contract dated 12.01.2016 with a supplier in Vietnam for import of natural rubber RSS3. Thereafter, on 20.01.2016 the Director General of Foreign Trade issued a notification no. 32/2015-2020 revising the policy condition for import of natural rubber as follows: "Revised policy condition; import allowed only through sea ports of Chennai and Nhava Sheva (Jawaharlal Nehru port)." 3. Thereafter, the overseas exporter issued a commercial invoice to the appellant on 25.01.2016 and dispatched the consignment of natural rubber by bill of lading dated 03.02.2016 fr....
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.... 1, 00,000/- (Rupees One Lakh Only) in terms of provisions of Section 125(1) ibid. b) I also impose a penalty of Rs. 50,000/- (Rupees Fifty Thousand Only) on the Importer M/s Climax Overseas Pvt. Ltd. under Section 112 (a) ibid. 5. This order was upheld by the Commissioner (Appeals) by the impugned order. Hence, this appeal on the following grounds: a. There was no violation of DGFT notification dated 20.01.2016 as the port of discharge in their case was Nhava Sheva, although the goods were clear through ICD Garhi Harsaru. The goods should not have been forwarded to ICD Garhi, Harsaru by Nhava Sheva Port customs officers. Procurement certificate as required was also obtained by the appellant from the Central Excise authorities and a no....
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....The penalties are not imposable under section 112 because the conduct of appellant has always been bonafide. 6. It was therefore, prayed that the impugned order may be set aside and the appeal may be allowed. 7. Learned Authorised Representative supports the impugned order and argues that it calls for no interference as the appellant had clearly and apparently imported natural rubber in violation of DGFT notification dated 20.01.2016. He submits that the port of import is the airport, land custom station, ICD etc. from where the goods are cleared by the importer. There cannot be two ports of import. It is a well settled legal position that the import is complete only when goods cross the customs frontiers. In this case, this happened at I....
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....ight of the state and this is not subservient to any contract between two businesses. Needless to say that in the case of any conflict between a contract and the law, the latter prevails. After the notification was issued on 20.01.2016 the appellant could have negotiated changes to the contract and got an invoice issued and delivery modified to bring it in conformity with the new legal notification. The appellant did nothing but went ahead with inflicting the goods under a bill of lading with the port of discharge as Nhava Sheva and final destination as ICD Garhi, Harsaru. This only establishes that either the appellant was negligent or otherwise decided to import the goods in violation of the law. 10. The next question is whether the Nhav....
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....llant is that the import consignment was a transitional arrangement as the contract was signed on 12.01.2016 before the issue of the notification and therefore the provision of notification is not applicable for this consignment. This submission cannot be accepted. The private contracts between parties cannot prevail over public policy and public law. If there is a conflict, the law prevails. The notification came into force on the date of publication regardless of the date of various business contracts. 13. Private contracts are always subject to public policy and laws and if in terms of the changed law the performance under the contract becomes impossible, the contract becomes void. Further, in this case, although the contract was signed....