AI Drafter 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (12) TMI 129
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....s also ordered absolute confiscation of the silver bullion weighing 2,43,640.64 grams valued at Rs.1,37,96,297/-. The said confiscation were ordered in terms of Section 111(a)(b)(h) & (m) of the Customs Act, 1962. Apart from the aforesaid confiscation, learned Adjudicating Authority had also ordered confiscation of Rs.29,71,970/- under Section 121 of the Customs Act, 1962 besides imposing penalty of varying amounts on the three Respondents herein under Section 112(b) of the Customs Act, 1962. 3. It is the case of the Revenue that based on the specific intelligence the Officers of the DRI Lucknow Zonal Unit on 28.11.2020 intercepted Shri Nagendra Hiralal Tiwari & Shri Purmanand Ramchandra Mishra and recovered from their possession gold weighing 2997 grams at Prayagraj Bus stand upon arrival from Nagpur. The said gold (03 Metal bars) had foreign marks and therefore, Department under a reasonable belief that the said gold was smuggled and as the intercepted persons were not able to produce the required invoices to justify the licit procurement, seized the said gold. In follow up action based on the statements of the two intercepted persons the Revenue searched the premises of Shri ....
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.... is that mere indication of the foreign marking on gold bars cannot ipso-facto lead to the conclusion that the said gold was smuggled in nature. Appropriate legit evidence is required to establish the same and refute the onus discharged by the Respondents. 8. The primary contention of the Revenue is that the learned Appellate Authority failed to note facts & evidences as emerged during the investigation and only relied upon documents so tendered by the Chartered Accountant. We find this to be a mere a hollow plea. But for the initial statements of two co-accused the Revenue has nothing to support its stance. In support of its contention about the nature of gold being smuggled following has been laid out by the Revenue:- a. The gold so seized by officers of DRI having clear foreign mark/engravings. b. No documents related to said foreign origin gold were recovered or produced by both persons i.e. S/Shri Nagendra Hiralal Tiwari & Purnanand Ramchandra Mishra. c. Both the persons were found involved in foreign origin smuggled gold on previous occasion too. Both were apprehended by the officers of Kolkata Customs (Preventive) in a case of smuggling of forei....
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....he said seized gold was purchased from Safari Bullion, Mumbai and Jasraj Shantilal Baid Jeweller, Rajnandgaon and in support of this, he submitted tax invoices issued by both the sellers and also submitted the bank account statement having related entry of financial transactions. l. He further submitted that there was no remuneration to be paid to artisan i.e. Raju Bhai and only gold jewellery was to be received back. Further, it is strange that he did not provide any design to Raju Bhai and only Raju bhai was going to decide the design of jewellery. However, interestingly he in his application filed before Hon'ble High Court submitted that he had sent the said gold to Prayagraj for manufacturing of jewellery of special design. But on being asked by the investigative agency he failed to produced any contact number of Raju Bhai. This contradiction proves mensren of Shri Anand Navalchand Pugaliya. m. During his statement he stressed on the fact that the said seized gold was got from conversion of 35 small pieces. n. During follow-up search at the premises of M/s Devkar Refinery vide Panchnama dated 22.09.2021, no mould of 1 Kg having any marka was found....
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....However, the gold was seized by the officers of DRI in the month of November' 20. Even after having sufficient time, he misled the officers of DRI, Nagpur by seeking time to provide the details of Raju Bhai, the artisan, in due course and finally denied having any details about said Raju bhai shows his clear mensrea beyond any reasonable doubt. r. The documents/ stock register so submitted by Shri Anand N. Pugaliya, nowhere mention the outward entry of 38 or 35 pieces of gold pieces which were handed over to the refiner Shri Vijay Anandrao Devkar of M/s Devkar Refinery and no inward entry of the converted 03 gold bars which were returned to him. 9. We find that the aforesaid imputations in support of its appeal are not more than extraneous reasonings and do not directly link and connect with the seized gold herein. This is more so as the respondents discharged the initial onus cast upon them with the submissions of the said duty paid invoices evidencing legal procurement and for which payments were made through banking stream. Moreover, the same were also duly reflected in the books of account. On the basis of evidence supplied as also recorded by Commissioner (Appe....
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....ions, 4603 20.10.2020 1000 grams 3 Zaveri Bazar, 7299 18.11.2020 1000 grams 4 Mumbai 7850 23.11.2020 1000 grams 13. We are of the view that there was no fault in the action of the Respondent in submitting a Certificate from the Chartered Accountant to that effect and their anxiety to establish their case can be understood. It may have been done by way of ex abundanti cautela. The fact that the said purchase invoice have been recorded in the books of accounts and were produced before the authorities at the first available instance goes in as an important proof of legitimate procurement of gold in question. Moreover, the said gold bars were purchased under proper invoices having discharged their tax liability. Strangely there has been no finding recorded on this aspect by the Adjudicating Authority and the Revenue has simply chosen to find fault with findings of the Commissioner (Appeals) based on unrelated facts like past history of co-accused etc. It is settled law that suspicion howsoever grave cannot take the place of proof. We are of the view that the Respondents have sufficiently discharged the onus cast upon the....