2023 (3) TMI 1177

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.... and 20(1) of Customs House Agents Licensing Regulations (CHALR), 2004, and not once but twice, in order [order no. 87/2013/CAC/CCG-/PKA-CHA(Admn) dated 22nd July 2013] of Commissioner of Customs (General), Mumbai. 2. The licencing authority resorted to disposal of two proceedings, initiated separately and chronologically spanned, by common order after the first, arising from 'offence report' of 5th December 2008 and culminating in revocation that was appealed against before the Tribunal with plea of not having been placed on notice of intent of Commissioner of Customs to disagree with inquiry report holding three of the four charges as not proved, was remanded back for adherence to procedural prescriptions by order of 23rd April 2013 an....

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....nd except by appellate sanction, for resumption of erased jurisdiction merely for meting another erasure. 5. It certainly fails in appeal to logic and reason that a licence, issued under the Customs House Agents Licensing Regulations, 2004 that has been revoked by competent authority accompanied by forfeiture of security deposit, can, in the same metaphorical breath, be revived by the same authority for being subjected to revocation and forfeiture of deposit once again. Nor can it don the saving grace of rational purpose in such sequential detriment unless, at best, it had occurred to the licensing authority that one of the two erasures lacked sufficient foundation to sustain or, at worst, that 'customs brokers' are fair game for whimsic....

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....igating authority. Hence I am of the considered view that the belated request by the CHA for cross-examination of the witnesses is a dilatory tactic and does not deserve consideration. Moreover, crossexamination cannot be claimed as matter of right as held in various judgments of the Tribunal and High Courts. Accordingly I reject the request of the CHA.' in the impugned order. 7. In the circumstances in which the appellant approached the Tribunal on the former occasion, viz., unanticipated revocation despite favourable findings in inquiry report, with no premonition of the justification likely to be appropriated for extinguishment of licence, neither would it have been necessary to visit the statements of the persons till responding t....