2025 (6) TMI 615

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....assailed by Shri Kailash Chander Varshney Appellant in this appeal. In the OIO, the Additional Commissioner absolutely confiscated 2,946.80 g of gold recovered from the appellant and owned by him under section 111(d) of the Customs Act, 1962 Act and imposed a penalty of Rs.10,00,000/- on him under section 112(b) (i)of the Act. 2. The facts which led to the issue of the impugned order are that the officers of Customs received specific intelligence acting on which they searched the premises of the appellant and recovered six pieces of gold, weighing 2,946.80 g with foreign markings. When asked on 11.4.2018, the appellant stated that he deals in sale or purchase of gold and silver, but had no documents or invoices evidencing licit possessio....

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.... by the Commissioner (Appeals) through the impugned order. Submissions on behalf of the appellant 7. Shri Rajesh Kumar, learned consultant for the appellant appeared before us and made the following submissions: (i) The appellant is a trader of billions, and is registered with the GST. (ii) On 11.4.2018, the Customs officers seized from the appellant the disputed gold which was in irregular pieces and had foreign markings as the appellant had no invoices. (iii) The seizure memo records no reason to believe that the gold was smuggled gold. (iv) In due course, invoices were produced but they were not considered by the lower authorities and this submission of the appellant is recorded on page 44 of the....

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....4.2018 and 9.8.2018, the appellant consistently stated that he had no documents to show licit possession of the gold and that he had bought the gold without invoices. (v) The invoice produced much later which is at page 47 of the appeal does not match with the seized gold. There is no reference to the foreign marked gold that was seized, let alone any duty paying documents related to it. (vi) Therefore, the gold was correctly confiscated and the penalty was correctly imposed on the appellant. (vii) The appeal may be dismissed and the impugned order may be upheld. Findings 9. We have considered the submissions on both sides and perused the records. The first issue which we need to examine is whether Section 1....

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.... the appellant had six cut pieces of foreign marked gold. When the appellant was asked on 11.4.2018, he said that he had no documents whatsoever, let alone, any duty paid documents for the seized gold. He said that he had purchased the gold without any invoices or bills from traders who had come to his shop. 12. In his statement recorded the next day on 12.4.2018, he again reiterated that he had no documents for the seized gold. In our considered view, this gave the officers reasonable belief that the six foreign marked pieces of gold were smuggled gold. When they are seized, the burden of proof shifted to the appellant from who they were seized to prove that they were not smuggled. 13. In another statement recorded on 9.8.2018 (almos....