Ratinder Pal Singh Bhatia Vs Commissioner of Customs (CESTAT Delhi)
CESTAT Delhi held that penalty u/s. 114 of the Customs Act can be levied only if the goods are held liable to confiscation u/s. 113 of the Customs Act. Here, as the confiscation cannot be sustained, penalty u/s. 114 of the Customs Act cannot also be sustained.
Facts- Intelligence was received by the department that M/s. Sundram Export Pvt. Ltd. and M/s. Netcompware Pvt. Ltd. had exported CD-ROMs under Duty Entitlement Pass Book Scheme by grossly overvaluing it with an intention to wrongly avail DEPB scrips and thereby evade customs duty. Enquiries were, therefore, initiated by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence7. Statement of various persons, including the appellant, were recorded and ultimately a show cause notice dated 04.12.2000 was issued to 26 persons including the appellant.
The case setup by the department in the show cause notice is that Sundram Export exported 96,800 pieces of CD-ROMs at highly inflated Freight on Board8value of US 19$ per piece. Another exporter, by name of Netcompware, also exported a consignment of 40,000 pieces of CD-ROMs at overvalued price of US 19$ per piece. The 5 shipping bills covering the above exports were filed under the DEPB Scheme. According to the department, the overvalued export was used by the exporter to fraudulently procure DEPB scrips.
