Guideline for conduct of personal hearing in virtual mode under Customs Act, 1962 - Customs - PUBLIC NOTICE No. 18/2020

OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER CUSTOMS (PREVENTIVE) COMMISSIONERATE, JODHPUR (HQ at Jaipur) New Central revenue Building, Statue Circle, Jaipur, Rajasthan F. No. VIII(H)9/CT/PN/12/2020 Dated 01.05.2020 PUBLIC NOTICE No. 18/2020 Subject: - Guideline for conduct of personal hearing in virtual mode under Customs Act, 1962 - Reg. On account of recent outbreak of COVID- 19 and with a view to adopt measures to ensure social distancing, reduce physical presence, use modern information and communication technology system and change conventional mode of work, personal hearing through video conferencing facility may be conducted as under:- 1. In any proceedings before The Commissioner of Customs, Jodhpur (HQ at Jaipur)or other adjudicating authorities within this Commissionerate under the Customs Act, 1962, the Parties shall give their consent to avail the personal hearing, through video conferencing facility, at the time of filing their replies or immediately after the issue of this Public Notice, in the pending cases if any. Parties should also indicate their Email addresses for correspondence etc. 2. The date and time of hearing for the video conference shall be informed in advance to the party or their consultant/ counsel through the official email or electronic media of this office. 3. The advocate/ consultant/ authorized representative, appearing on behalf of the party, in virtual hearing, should file his vakalatnama or authorization letter along with a copy of his photo ID card and contact details to this office through official e-mail address of the concerned authority after scanning the same. All persons participating in the video conference should be appropriately dressed and maintain the decorum required for such an occasion. 4. Virtual hearing through Video conference shall be held from the office of the Commissioner of Customs, Jodhpur (HQ at Jaipur) or any official Videoconference facility set up in the office of the Commissioner of Customs, Jodhpur (HQ at Jaipur). 5. The virtual hearing through video conference will be conducted through available applications or another secured computer network. The party should download such application in their computer system/ laptop/ mobile phone beforehand for ready connectivity during virtual hearing, and join the video conference at the time allotted to them, as given in point (2) above. 6. In case where the party/ his representative wish to participate in the virtual hearing proceeding along with their advocate, they should do so under proper intimation to the Appellate Authority as mention at point (2) above. They may participate in virtual hearing along with their advocate/ authorized representativeor join the proceedings from their own office. 7. The submissions made by the appellant or their representative through the video conference will be reduced in writing and a statement of the same will be prepared, which shall be known as record of personal hearing . A soft copy at such record of personal hearing in PDF format willbe sent to the appellant through email ID provided by advocate/ appellant/ respondent within one day of such hearing. 8. If the, appellant their representative wants to modify the contents of e-mailed record of personal hearing, they can do so and sign the modified record, scan and send back the signed record of personal hearing to the Appellate Authority. 9. If, however, the appellant/ their representative do not resend the above e- mailed record of personal hearing within 3 days of receipt of such email as at point (8) above, It will be presumed that they agree with the contents' of e- mailed record of personal hearing and appellate authority will proceed to decide the case accordingly. No modification in e-mailed record of personal hearing will be entertained after 3 days of its receipt by appellant/ their representative. The date of receipt of the email by the appellate authority will not be counted for this purpose. 10. The record of personal hearing submitted in this manner shall be deemed to be a document for the purpose of the Customs Act, 1962, read with Section 4 of the Information Technology Act, 2000. 11. If the party/ advocate prefers to submit any document including additional submissions during the virtual hearing, he may do so by self-attesting such document and a scanned copy of the same may be e-mailed to the appellate authority immediately after virtual hearing and in no case after 3 days of virtual hearing. The date of the hearing will be excluded for this purpose. 12. Any official representing the Department's side can also participate in the virtual hearing through video conferencing. 13. Difficulty faced, if any, may be brought to the notice of the undersigned. Hindi version may follow. (S. C. Agarwal) Commissioner