TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (5) TMI 1114
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.... the Customs Act 19623. [the Customs Act] 2. The appellant claims that he is an individual salaried person, employed in a private firm, and not engaged in any trading, manufacturing, or commercial business activity. The appellant further claim that during the course of his employment he happened to come into contact with an employee of M/s New Tech Abrasives Ltd. [NTAL] the main noticee and that he had merely introduced certain prospective buyers to the said employee and had no role in procurement, storage, transportation, or handling of any goods. 3. The Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence [DGCEI] Regional Unit, Indore, received information that NTAL had clandestinely removed huge quantities of M.S. Ingots, valued from....
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....ties including "RG" were reflected. The appellant is alleged to have acknowledged in his statement that certain sales shown therein were arranged through him on commission basis. On the basis of these allegations, it was alleged that believed by the department, the appellant had purchased M.S. Ingots clandestinely removed by NTAL without payment of customs duty and thereby rendered himself liable to penalty under section 112(b) of the Customs Act. 6. Accordingly, a show cause notice dated 24.08.2012 was issued to the appellant proposing imposition of penalty under section 112(b) of the Customs Act. 7. The appellant filed a reply to the show cause notice on 28.12.2013 and stated that he is a salaried individual and had merely introduce....
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....rds, which neither belong to the appellant nor were maintained by him. Such records, in the absence of independent corroboration, cannot form the sole basis for imposition of penalty under section 112(b) of the Customs Act; (v) It is a settled principle of law that allegations of clandestine purchase or dealing cannot be sustained merely on the basis of third-party records or uncorroborated statements, especially when no evidence is recovered from the premises of the appellant; (vi) The entire allegation against the appellant is founded solely on third-party documents allegedly recovered during the search conducted at the premises of NTAL, namely a rough private ledger seized from the room of one Ganpat and certain compute....
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....appellant, or the appellant made any such payment to NTAL or significantly, No incriminating evidence has been recovered from the premises of the appellant. 10. Shri Ajay Jain, learned special counsel appearing for the department, however, supported the impugned order and submitted that it does not call for any interference in these two appeals. Learned special counsel also submitted that penalty under section 112(b) of the Customs Act was correctly imposed on the appellant as he had purchased the goods produced by NTAL in a clandestine manner. 11. The submissions advanced by the learned counsel for the appellants and the learned special counsel appearing for the department have been considered. 12. It is seen from the impugned ord....