2009 (2) TMI 135

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....y of Rs.17.07 Lakh (approx.) against the said appellant along with imposition of penalty of Rs. 5 Lakh on M/s. Nova Petrochemicals and Rs. 5 Lakh on Shri Sunil Gupta, Director of Nova Petrochemicals, in terms of provisions of Section 112 (a) of the Customs Act. 2. As per the facts on record, M/s. Nova Petrochemicals Limited is engaged in the manufacture of various types of Yarns and Textile goods. They imported one set of second hand draw twister machine from South Korea company M/s. Machine World, under their claim under Para 5.4 of the Hand book of Procedure (Vol-1), according to which, import of second hand capital goods, which is not 10 years old, is admissible without specific import license. The year of manufacture machine under impo....

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....ard ld. Advocate Shri P.M. Dave appearing for the appellants and Shri Sameer Chitkara, SDR appearing for the Revenue. 6. The ld. Advocate submitted that he is not challenging the assessable value portion of the impugned order inasmuch as differential duty paid by them has already been taken as credit. As such, the dispute which remains to be decided in the present appeal is only in respect of the age of the machine. 7. It is seen that the machine in question was duly accompanied by the Chartered Engineer certificate wherein it has been detailed that the performance of the machine was observed against the specification listed by the manufacturer and it was observed to meet the specified standards. It was also mentioned in the said certific....

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....plier and in the absence of any evidence to doubt correctness of the same, discarding of the said certificate indicating the date of manufacture as of 1992 can not be upheld. Further, the observation of the adjudicating authorities that the machine was examined by the Chartered Engineer in a packed condition also cannot be upheld in the absence of any evidence to the contrary. The Tribunal in the case of Vardhman Spining & General Mills Ltd. v. CC, Amritsar [2004 (171) E.L.T. 29 (Tri.-Del.)] has held that the second hand machinery being accompanied by a certificate of Chartered Engineer confirming the age as less than 10 years, has to be held accordingly, in the absence of any other sufficient material brought on record to doubt the correct....

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....ess factual information. Further, we find that as against the excessive communication between the foreign supplier and the Customs department, it stand repeatedly clarified that the machine was manufactured in 1992. It is only in one of the letter that the foreign manufacturer has referred to the fact that various letters are being received by them in respect of machine which was manufactured more than a dec ade ago. Nothing turns on the above expression used in the letter, when used against the specific information as regards the date of manufacture. The use of expression - more than a decade ago, is in a rough manner and meaning thereby that machine is around a decade old. This use of expression cannot be lead to any inevitable conclusio....