AI OCR 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (9) TMI 1416
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....demand of duty, confiscation and penalties on M/s. Wide Impex [Importer], the importer, were not included in Form CA 3 filed in this appeal. 3. We, therefore, proceed to decide the impugned order only insofar as it imposes penalties on the appellant. 4. The operative part of the impugned order has four parts A, B, C and D. Parts A, B and C reject the transaction values declared by the importer, re-determine the values of the goods, confirm differential duty, confiscate goods and impose penalties on the importer. Part D imposes penalties on the appellant. It reads as follows: ORDER A. In respect of B/E No. 435561 dated 11.12.17- ..... B. In respect of B/E No. 664028 dated 2.6.2018- ..... C. In respect of past Bills of Entry filed from 13.08.2014 to 06.01.2018 ..... D. Penalty on Shri Nitin Khandelwal (xiv) I impose a penalty of Rs. 30,00,000/- (Rupees Thirty Lakhs only) under Section 112(a) of Customs Act, 1962 and penalty of Rs. 30,00,000/- (Rupees Thirty Lakhs only) under Section 114AA of Customs Act, 1962 on Sh. Nitin Khandelwal, Manager of M/s Wide Impex." 5. The facts of the case are that the im....
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[email protected], [email protected] and [email protected]. 10. The appellant opened his email [email protected] on the computer installed in SIIB room voluntarily and took a print out of the original invoices in excel form which were received from [email protected] and put his signature on the printout. The data contained in the email and the excel sheets were collected by SIIB officers. The appellant gave his further statement on 17.07.2018 in which he re-affirmed that he had opened his email id while giving his statement on 19.01.2018 and took prints of the excel sheets which he had signed. He stated that the prices therein were on CIF basis. 11. Investigation also showed that the importer had filed another Bill of Entry No. 6646028 dated 2.6.2018 self-assessing duty. When the goods were examined, discrepancies were found between what was declared and what was actually imported. The actual invoice of this consignment was also found in the excel sheet provided by the appellant in respect of this Bill of Entry. 12. Goods in consignments were seized for mis-declarataion and they were provisionally released on bond. 13. Officers also investigated the past impo....
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....ave been imposed on the appellant. (xi) Penalty under section 114AA can be imposed only in case of mis-declarations in exports and not for mis-declarations on imports. Reliance is placed on the 27th Report of Stating Committee on Finance of Lok Sabha. (xii) Therefore, penalty under section 114AA could not have been imposed on the appellant. (xiii) The impugned order may be set aside and the appeal may be allowed. Submissions on behalf of the Revenue 17. Learned authorized representative for the Revenue made the following submissions: (i) This case is one of gross mis-declaration and undervaluation of imported goods by M/s. Wide Impex of which Mayank was the owner and the appellant was the manager and also the elder brother of Mayank. (ii) Suspecting undervaluation, summons were issued to the owner and instead the appellant appeared with an authorization from the owner because he was the manager of the importer firm and was involved in the day to day functions of the importer. (iii) In his statement, the appellant said that they would get two sets of invoices- one for a lower value in USD which he would submit to customs an....
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....e Commissioner cannot endlessly keep adjourning the matter. He was correct in deciding the matter based on the evidence available. 21. The appellant submitted that the Excel sheet on the basis of which the duty was recalculated was not admissible as evidence as per section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act which reads as follows: 65B. Admissibility of electronic records: (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, any information contained in an electronic record which is printed on a paper, stored, recorded or copied in optical or magnetic media produced by a computer (hereinafter referred to as the computer output) shall be deemed to be also a document, if the conditions mentioned in this section are satisfied in relation to the information and computer in question and shall be admissible in any proceedings, without further proof or production of the original, as evidence of any contents of the original or of any fact stated therein of which direct evidence would be admissible. (2) The conditions referred to in sub-section (1) in respect of a computer output shall be the following, namely: - (a) the computer output containing the inform....
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....duced by a computer; (c) dealing with any of the matters to which the conditions mentioned in sub-section (2) relate, and purporting to be signed by a person occupying a responsible official position in relation to the operation of the relevant device or the management of the relevant activities (whichever is appropriate) shall be evidence of any matter stated in the certificate; and for the purposes of this sub-section it shall be sufficient for a matter to be stated to the best of the knowledge and belief of the person stating it. (5) For the purposes of this section, - (a) information shall be taken to be supplied to a computer if it is supplied thereto in any appropriate form and whether it is so supplied directly or (with or without human intervention) by means of any appropriate equipment; (b) whether in the course of activities carried on by any official, information is supplied with a view to its being stored or processed for the purposes of those activities by a computer operated otherwise than in the course of those activities, that information, if duly supplied to that computer, shall be taken to be supplied to it in the course of thos....
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.... etc. None of these were specifically retracted in the retraction dated 21.02.2018. We, therefore, have no hesitation in accepting that the statement dated 09.01.2018 was valid and voluntary. It also needs to be pointed out that during the recording of his statement, Nitin also opened his email account in the office of SIIB. It would have been impossible for anybody else because only the appellant knew his password. He explained about the documents in his email id including the excel sheets in question, took prints of the excel sheets under the documents signed them and presented them before the officers. Therefore, we have no manner of doubt about how the excel sheet came into possession of the department or its authenticity. It was given to the officers by Nitin taking a print out from his email account after signing. 24. The only information available with the investigating officers was the intelligence that the goods were undervalued and that they were mis-declared. The officers did not have any parallel invoices in the form Excel sheet. They were also not aware of the modus operandi of the appellant or the email accounts used by the appellant and the overseas suppliers to s....