Case Law Details
Divine Chemtee Ltd. Vs Principal Commissioner of Customs and Ors. (Andhra Pradesh High Court)
Facts- The petitioner is a private limited company registered as a unit of Special Economic Zone (SEZ) with the Visakhapatnam Special Economic Zone (VSEZ). The petitioner imported four consignments and stored the material in the bonded warehouse. The petitioner undertook certain operations on its imported consignments in order to export the same. The petitioner thereafter filed a shipping bill with VSEZ for export of the consignment of Bio Diesel.
The officers of DRI visited the bonded warehouse and drew samples of the said export material on the ground that the petitioner was attempting to export bio diesel imported vide BEO dated 21.02.2011, without undertaking any process and without even bringing the imported material to the factory premises in SEZ and by wrongly obtaining Certificate of Origin as India, to certain clients in European Union facilitating them to avoid anti-dumping duty being imposed by the European Union on bio diesel which originated in USA.
Accordingly, the officers of DRI detained the said export material under Section 110 of the Customs Act, 1962, which was subsequently converted into a seizure on the ground that the value of the imported consignment was grossly undervalued. The petitioner made a representation to DRI against the illegal seizure of the export goods and requested for the release of the same on the ground that they were meant for export. The DRI allowed release of the said goods on production of a bond.
A notice was issued to the petitioner proposing to levy penalty u/s. 112(a) and Section 114 of the Customs Act, 1962. Accordingly, a consequential order was passed by the revenue authorities against the petitioner. The petitioner filed a writ petition before the High Court against this order.
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