Nitin Khandelwal Vs Principal Commissioner (CESTAT Delhi)
CESTAT Delhi held that penalty under section 114AA of the Customs Act can duly be imposed for mis-declaration in imports. Accordingly, penalty of Rs. 30,00,000 imposed u/s. 114AA is modest since the same doesn’t exceed five time the value of goods.
Facts- The importer filed Bill of Entry dated 11.12.2017 to clear goods imported by it and self-assessed the duty payable on them. Receiving intelligence that the description and value of the goods were mis-declared in this Bill of Entry, officers of the Special Intelligence and Investigation Branch of the Commissionerate examined the goods and found some goods were found in excess, some goods were not declared and the price of some goods appeared to be too low. Samples of some goods were also sent for testing to Central Revenue Control Laboratory to determine the nature and composition.
After completing the investigation, Show Cause Notice dated 11.4.2017 was issued to the importer and to the appellant proposing to reject the declared transaction value and to redetermine the value as per the correct invoice values where they were available and based on contemporaneous imports where they were not available. It was proposed to recover the differential duty with interest and impose penalties. These culminated in the impugned order.
