TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2003 (9) TMI 179
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.... two warehouse bills of entry Nos. 446330 and 446331 both dated 9-12-2000 valued at Rs. 79,81,088/- and that they are liable for confiscation under Sections 111(m) and (o) of the Customs Act, 1962. He has given an option to redeem the same on payment of fine of Rs. 8.00 lakhs. He has imposed a penalty of Rs. 2.00 lakhs on M/s. Goyal Ispat Ltd., the importer under Section 112(a) of the Customs Act and in terms of his findings in Para 55 of the order and a penalty of Rs. 1.00 lakh on M/s. Ace Kargoways Pvt. Ltd. has been imposed under Section 112(a) of the Customs Act in terms of his findings arrived at Para 56 of his order. 3. The short facts of the case in these two appeals are that the appellants had imported re-rollable steel scrap cut....
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....ng that the material up to 2000 mm in length and 800 mm in width can be considered as non-alloy steel re-rollable scrap and the material above 2000 mm in length and 800 mm in width can be considered as defective/rejected slab cuttings suitable for re-rolling. After the segregation and weighment it was found that weighment of 227 pieces of the subject goods confirmed the specification given in the above noted notification while 1,039.910 MTs were found to be not in confirmation to the said specification and hence the appellants were charged for having claimed the benefit of the notification with a view to avail the benefit under said customs notification wrongly and hence they were liable for confiscation. The appellants contended that merel....
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....on M/s. Kothari Impex, under Section 112(a) of the Customs Act and in terms of his findings in Para 55 of the order and a penalty of Rs. 1.88 lakh on M/s. Ace Kargoways Pvt. Ltd. has been imposed under Section 112(a) of the Customs Act in terms of his findings arrived at Para 56 of his order. 5. We have heard Shri S. Murugappan, Advocate, for the appellants and Shri A. Jayachandran for the Revenue. 6. Counsel took us through all the documents to show that there was no misdeclaration and throughout they had declared the items to be non-alloy steel re-rollable scrap (consisting of slab cutting). Nowhere they had mis-declared to claim wrongly the benefit of the concessions and they had not segregated the same. He produced a copy of the e....
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....649. He also submitted that the goods were warehoused at their own request and they were to clear the same under DFRC scheme and there was nothing to show that they had an intention to defraud the Legislature by claiming the concession wrongly. He also submitted that notification has since been rescinded and that they are to clear the goods only on payment of full customs duty and hence there was no question of misdeclaring and taking the advantage of misdeclaration. They had cleared the declared item as scrap only and the appraiser had also directed for examination. Later on, the matter was taken up by the Special Investigation and Intelligence Branch for investigation and the quantum of goods required segregation. Only thereafter it was s....
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....nd the appellants are required to pay duty as well, is not in dispute. The only question that requires for consideration is as to whether the goods which did not satisfy the terms of the notification could be confiscated and penalty be imposed. For imposition of penalty, it has to be established by the Department that the appellant had committed an act with an intention to evade duty. The Revenue has not shown that the importers had committed such an act and there is nothing in the statements to indicate that there was a collusion, fraud, misrepresentation with a view to evade customs duty. They had declared the entire item to be as scrap and claimed the benefit of notification. The documents filed disclosed that they had not declared the s....