2008 (7) TMI 407

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.... order under Section 127C of the Customs Act, 1962 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act'). By the aforesaid impugned order, the Settlement Commission while settling the duty liability of the petitioner at Rs. 13,47,839/- under Section 127C of the Act, on an application filed by the petitioner, has ordered that the petitioner shall pay interest @ 15% from the date the date of import of the first consignment till the date of payment. However, the petitioner has been granted immunity from penalty and prosecution. 2. The sole contention raised by the learned Counsel for the petitioner is that in the impugned order, the petitioner was not granted the immunity from payment of interest on the ground that the Settlement Commission has no jurisdict....

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.... should not be interfered in exercise of the writ jurisdiction. Learned Counsel submitted that in the present case the Settlement Commission has not denied the immunity from interest on the ground that the Settlement Commission has no jurisdiction/power to grant immunity from interest, but the same has been denied to the petitioner on the ground that the same was arising from contractual obligation and the petitioner itself had executed the bond to pay the interest @ 15% on the duty which it is liable to pay from the date of import of the first consignment till the date of payment. In support of his contention, learned Counsel for the respondents relied upon a Division Bench judgment of the Bombay High Court in Pratibha Syntext Ltd. v. Unio....

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....of the Act and submitted to the jurisdiction of the Settlement Commission, then in that circumstances, once the matter has been settled by the Settlement Commission, who also granted immunity from penalty and prosecution, but declined to grant immunity from payment of interest on the duty from its due date, such an order, in our view, should not be interfered in exercise of the writ jurisdiction under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India. Once the petitioner did not fulfill the export obligation and committed breach of the bond executed by it, then the custom authorities were entitled to enforce the declaration with bond and legal undertaking given by it and recover customs duty with interest. If the custom authorities were entitle....