2024 (3) TMI 1297

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....ity deposit and imposed penalty of Rs. 50,000/- under Regulation 14 and 18 of the Customs Broker Licensing Regulations (CBLR) 2018, for having contravened the provisions of the said Regulations. 2. Briefly stated the facts of the case are that on a surprise check conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) at the Chennai Container Freight Station (CFS), it was found that the Superintendent of Customs posted as Appraiser at the CFS Chennai was demanding and accepting undue advantage from the Custom House Agents (CHA) for issuing Let Export Order / out of charge order on the consignments and registration of bills pertaining to import/export. Shri A. Shanmughavel, an Authorised Signatory of the appellant had collected a payment v....

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....still pending in CBI court against the customs official and various other customs brokers to establish the factual position with regard to the charges made by the CBI and when these are pending, it is inappropriate to conclude parallel enquiries against the appellant, who is one of the Customs Broker. It is further stated that the appellant cannot be punished where the clerical staff allegedly pays petty amounts to the customs official for performing the official duties, out of the money given to them for their clearance work, which is neither approved/authorized by the appellant. To substantiate his above argument, he relies on the following decisions to submit that the appellant cannot be held liable for the acts of their employees. ....

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....andably, the evidence made available to the Adjudicating Authority in the instant case is not of a kind to be a proof beyond doubt; set of evidence available before the Adjudicating Authority was a report by the CBI, which itself at best, offers scope for conducting further enquiries in this regard. Other than, the report of the CBI and the statement said to have been given by the employee of the Custom broker before the Magistrate, the enquiry conducted by the Customs authorities did not indicate any further corroboration. Understandably, the allegations made by the CBI are pending adjudication before the competent Court. As such, the report would not constitute an irrefutable evidence. However, the same cannot be held to be conclusive evi....

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....d on the voucher recovered from the appellant) for the clearance of Shipping Bill No.6549496 dated 28.08.2019 which was cleared by the appraiser on 30.08.2019 does not corroborate to the allegation of bribe. The entire proceedings are based on CBI report, which in turn is based on the slips and vouchers recovered from the customs officials, the appellant and various statements of the employees. These are only allegations/charges arrived at a preliminary stage which is yet to be corroborated with the evidences and to be finalised by the CBI. Moreover, based on the same set of facts, the Customs Brokers are penalised differently either by imposing only penalty or by revocation of license along with imposition of penalty as is the case of the ....