Unsustainable Penalty u/s. 112 and 114AA without Knowledge of Prohibited Goods Import

Sarvesh Sharma Sales Executive Vs Commissioner of Customs (CESTAT Delhi)

CESTAT Delhi held that penalty u/s. 112 and 114AA of the Customs Act not leviable in absence of any knowledge of goods of prohibited nature being imported.

Facts- Based on a specific intelligence in respect of five containers imported at Inland Container Depot, Tughlakabad, New Delhi under the master bill of lading, (said to contain 13000 cartons of A4 paper reams consigned to M/s Codognotto Logistics India Pvt Ltd), upon contacting the freight forwarding firm found that the said consignment was originally booked in the name of Ashtvinayak International, Delhi, however later changed to Global World Traders, Delhi. This was based on E mail instructions sent by Shri Anil Batra. The other two sets of house bills produced before the authorities, however, indicated the consignee name as ‘Global World Traders’. DRI upon examination of said containers found that concealed behind the declared cargo of paper reams were firecrackers of Chinese origin that were seized vide panchnama dated 22/23.04.2017 along with other goods imported.

Shri Sarvesh Sharma in his voluntary statement recorded by the authorities u/s. 108 of the Customs on 24.04.2017 admits that based on the E-mail referred to supra, received from Shri Anil Batra, requesting to change the consignee name, he managed to get the consignee name changed at his company’s end in China.

In so far as the case relating to the two appellants herein is concerned, the entire case made out against the appellants is with regard to deliberate connivance with the main noticees in changing the name of the consignee without due diligence and verification from M/s Global World Traders and its proprietor Vinod Kumar and without NOC from the consignee M/s Hong Kong Jofa Paper Limited and M/s Guangzhou BMPAPER Paper Company Limited. It is emphasised that the lapse was deliberately undertaken to help Anil Batra and the clearance of the said containers under the guise of a new IEC, so as to avoid the alerts imposed by the department on Ashtvinayak International. Accordingly, both Codognotto Logistics India Pvt Ltd and Sarvesh Sharma, Sales Executive of Codognotto Logistics India Pvt Ltd vide their acts of omission and commission have rendered themselves liable to imposition of penalty u/s. 112 and 114AA of the Customs Act.

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