TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2024 (1) TMI 348
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....lligence Unit (CIU) of New Custom House (NCH), Mumbai-I, informing that on reasonable suspicion they had kept on hold certain imported goods in container No. TEMU 8525264 imported by M/s Reton Engineering, for which Bill of Entry (B/E) No.2049316 dated 17.08.2022 has been filed by the appellants. 2.2. On the basis of such offence report received from CIU, NCH, Mumbai, the jurisdictional Principal Commissioner of Customs (General), Mumbai-I had concluded that there is a prima facie case against the appellants for having contravened Regulations 10(d) and 10(m) of CBLR, 2018. Accordingly, he had immediately suspended the CB license of the appellants under Regulation 16(1) ibid, vide Order No. 53/2022-23 dated 23.12.2022; and such suspension was continued vide Order No. 62/20221-23 dated 10.01.2023; further the department had initiated show cause proceedings by issue of notice No. 32/2022-23 dated 24.01.2023 for initiating inquiry proceedings under Regulation 17 ibid, against violations of CBLR as above. 2.3. Upon completion of the inquiry proceedings, an inquiry report dated 01.03.2023 was submitted concluding that both charges framed against the appellants CB have been proved....
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....al Meteorology Packaged Commodities Rules. Thus, learned AR justified the action of Principal Commissioner of Customs (General) in revocation of the appellant's CB license, imposition of penalty and forfeiture of security deposit in the impugned order and stated that the same is sustainable in law. It is further stated by him that the impugned order viewed that the timelines specified in CBLR are directory in nature and not a mandatory factor. 5. Heard both sides and perused the case records. We have also considered the additional written submissions given in the form of paper book by learned Advocate for the appellants as well as Authorised Representative for the Revenue. 6.1. The issue involved herein is to decide whether the appellant Customs Broker has fulfilled all his obligations as required under CBLR, 2013 or not. The specific sub-regulations which were alleged to have been violated by the appellants are Regulations 10 (d) and 10(m) ibid, and hence there are two distinct charges framed against the appellants. We also find that the impugned order dated 23.05.2023 has been passed by the Principal Commissioner of Customs (General) after taking into consideration the wr....
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.... B/E for aforesaid imports as given in the invoices and packing list provided by the importer. Further, the appellants were not aware of the package of the imported goods as there was no evidence to whether it was in individual packing or in bulk packing. It is not the case of the Revenue that the mandatory declarations in respect of the imported goods was deliberately not mentioned by the appellants CB, despite the details having been made available by the importer. In fact the plea made by the appellants is that the importer had promised to submit the required documents in respect of WPC certificates, declarations required under BIS/Legal Meteorology and Packaged Commodity Rules. However, in respect of imported goods vide B/E No.2049316 dated 17.08.2022, even before the submission of the complete details, the Central Intelligence Unit (CIU) investigation, as per the directions of the Principal Commissioner of Customs had already put on hold the container No. TEMU 8525264, and examined the goods under Panchanama proceedings on 26.08.2022. Thus, the appellants could not submit the complete details in respect of the imported goods. The facts also revealed that during an investigatio....
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....Inquiry officer, as there is no reliance on any statements of the importer and such evidence is not relevant. In this regard, we find that in both the charges against the appellants, they have taken the plea that the importers are supposed to provide additional documents in respect of WPC license etc., and there was no complaint of any delay or inefficiency on their part from the importer. Thus it is very clear that unless the opportunity is given to prove or disprove the above stand taken by the appellants, the basis on which the charges were framed by the Department for violation of Regulations under 10(d) and 10(m) cannot be proved with evidence. Thus we find that there is a failure in the Inquiry proceedings to comply with the requirement of providing natural justice under Regulation 17(4) ibid. 8.2. We find that in the case of M/s Shastha Freight Services Pvt. Ltd. (supra), the Hon'ble High Court of Telangana had clearly held the noncompliance with providing of opportunity of cross examination to a Customs broker in the inquiry proceedings as violation of principles of natural justice under 17(4) of the CBLR, 2018. The relevant paragraphs of the above said order is extracted ....
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.... and given the limitations of time, but keeping in view of the requirements of providing opportunity of being heard (which were not attended by the CB) and given the non-presentation of witnesses for cross-examination, it is to state that the findings are based on the available documents at hand i.e. the offence report, statements of Arjun Pilane and Pramod Bhor, the Prohibition order and the submissions of the CB, read with CBLR, 2013." 24. Therefore, it is clear that there was a gross violation of the principles of natural justice. Unfortunately for the Department, the principles of natural justice have also been in-built into Regulation 20(4). Therefore, the Enquiry Officer could not have violated the mandate of law. It would have been a different matter if the Enquiry Officer had chosen not to rely upon the statements of those two witnesses, but to proceed only on the basis of other available documents. But in more than one place, the Enquiry Officer affirmed his reliance upon the statements of witnesses, among other things. Therefore, the impugned order based upon such an enquiry report is contrary to the procedure prescribed by Regulation 20(4) and clearly in violation of ....
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.... ex-factory prices remain static. It was not for the Tribunal to have guess work as to for what purposes the appellant wanted to cross-examine those dealers and what extraction the appellant wanted from them. 7. As mentioned above, the appellant had contested the truthfulness of the statements of these two witnesses and wanted to discredit their testimony for which purpose it wanted to avail the opportunity of cross-examination. That apart, the Adjudicating Authority simply relied upon the price list as maintained at the depot to determine the price for the purpose of levy of excise duty. Whether the goods were, in fact, sold to the said dealers/witnesses at the price which is mentioned in the price list itself could be the subject matter of cross-examination. Therefore, it was not for the Adjudicating Authority to presuppose as to what could be the subject matter of the cross-examination and make the remarks as mentioned above. We may also point out that on an earlier occasion when the matter came before this Court in Civil Appeal No. 2216 of 2000, order dated 17-32005 [2005 (187) E.L.T. A33 (S.C.)] was passed remitting the case back to the Tribunal with the directions to decid....