Case Law Details
M. k. Exim (India) Limited Vs Union of India (Rajasthan High Court)
We have also perused the guidelines issued by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade under circular dated 31.12.2003 for maintaining the denied entities list. It records that most common instance of action leading to refusal of licenses occurs when firms default in export obligation fulfillment under various export promotion schemes. The licensing authorities in such cases will place the firm in DEL after serving a demand notice for fulfilling the obligation within a reasonable time. In cases relating to fraud and mis-declaration licensing authority would also examine that there was any connivance of the department officials. Basically the intention and effect of placing an entity in DEL is to deprive the facility of granting advance authorization license to it.
The contention that unless and until the petitioner pays up the entire duty and penalty imposed under the orders passed by the DGFT and custom authorities the petitioner cannot claim any export incentive under the new scheme is completely unacceptable. Both the orders are under challenge before the first appellate authorities. Respective statutes require pre-deposit of certain amounts upon which rest of the recoveries would be suspended. If the petitioner has no such protection under law, the department can recover the amounts through coercive means and perhaps even from the petitioner’s entitlement of intensives under the export promotion scheme in quest. But once this mechanism is statutorily put in place and followed by the assessee, the Government of India cannot seek coercive recovery of the remaining amounts in indirect manner by blocking the export incentives under unrelated schemes and future consignments.
FULL TEXT OF THE JUDGMENT/ORDER OF RAJASTHAN HIGH COURT
The petitioner has prayed for a direction to remove the name of the petitioner from the Denied Entity List (‘DEL’ for short) forthwith. The petitioner has further prayed for accepting the online application for availing the benefit of Merchandise Export from India Scheme (‘MEIS’ for short) for which the last date for making application for receiving benefits prescribed is 31.12.2021 as per the notification of the Government of India Ministry of Commerce and Industry dated 16.09.2021.
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