Case Law Details
Brief of the Case
Patna High Court held In the case of M/s Overseas Enterprises vs. The Union of India through the CC of Customs that there was absolutely no justification at all either on fact or in law in not giving effect to the order of the provisional release dated 28.03.2013. The plea of the respondents that they had received some adverse report with regard to adulterated quality of the betel nuts dated 04.04.2013, could not be given them any power to review or recall the order of provisional release passed by the competent authority in exercise of power under Section 110(A). Further after the adjudication in confiscation proceedings, in terms of Section 122, had been brought to an end in favour of the petitioners on 29.11.2013 and there was no order of either confiscation or paying fine by the petitioners and, in fact, the proceedings itself was dropped, the authorities of the Custom Department, in any view of the matter, whether in the name of the pendency of the testing report or otherwise, could not have kept the seized consignment of the petitioners in their possession even for a day.
By now, the law is well settled that the public officers have to be also held accountable for their acts of omission and commission. Accordingly, a loss of at least Rs.14,69,650/- along with interest on account of complete deterioration of quality of split betel nuts solely on account of deliberate laches on the part of the officials of the Custom Department need to be paid by custome officials. Hence, a direction issued to CBDT to conduct an enquiry to fix the personal accoutability of custom officials.
Facts of the Case
It is the case of the petitioners that they had imported 15.470 MT of processed betel nuts from Bangladesh through Land Customs Station, Petrapole under a valid bill of entry dated 28.01.2013. It is also claimed that upon clearance of payment of the prescribed amount of import duty, the goods imported by the petitioners were examined and after assessment and clearance of the goods, they were loaded in West Bengal registered vehicles and were brought to a place Bangaon by these trucks from where the goods were transferred/loaded to the trucks provided by the Transporter M/s SRC India Movers enroute to their business premises at New Delhi. The petitioners, in this regard, have also asserted that the goods, namely, betel nuts imported by them, were also got tested and nothing spurious was found in the test report of the Export Inspection Agency at Kolkata.
Please become a Premium member. If you are already a Premium member, login here to access the full content.
The insensitive attitude of the departmental officers towards plight of the assessees has irked the Hon’ble High Court to this extent. This is high time for the Boards (CBEC & CBDT) to take some serious steps to ensure that the officers dealing with trade are sensitized and made accountable for losses incurred by the trade and industry due to their callous and insensitive approach. To some extent the senior level officers in Board and in Vigilance wings of the departments are also responsible for this kind of approach at field level because the dealing officers are hauled up for taking right decisions if the higher ups take narrow view in the name of being upright, honest. The anti-trade actions are appreciated and officers taking right decisions are branded as pro-trade and anti-revenue and dishonest. Section 13(1)(d)(iii) of PCA, 1988 is so wide that a public servant can be prosecuted even for his action which has benefited to a third person without proving any malafide or mens rea. The proposed bill for amendment of PCA is stuck in Parliament.
An officer in field is always in dilemma as to whether he should take the decision when it comes to sanction of refund or any other benefit to the trade even if there is an order from the appellate authority because the department has decided to file appeal against that order.
These concerns of the field officers must be addressed without further delay to instill confidence in them and to assure the trade & industry that there will not be undue harassment or unexpected loss to them.
high handedness of customs officials – pl. note – law is applicable for each and every-one, it will definitely give justice may be after sometime. u cannot escape law of country.