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TMI Blog2000 (11) TMI 876X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... consignments of Tussah Silk and one consignment of Silk Fabrics totally valued at Rs. 45,85,291.00 exported by M/s. Grand Prime Ltd. of Hong Kong. Apart from that, penalty of Rs. 1.00 lakh each has and been imposed respectively on Sushil Mundra and Shri Shankar Lal Sharma. Penalty of Rs. 2.00 lakh has been imposed on Shri N.K. Jhunjhunwala and penalty of Rs. 50,000.00 each has been imposed respectively on Shri Binoy Majumder and Shri Deepak Biswas under the provisions of Section 112(b) of the Customs Act, 1962. It may be clarified here that vide the above impugned Order, the Commissioner has also confirmed the demand of Rs. 19,32,572.00 with an equivalent amount of personal penalty under the provisions of Section 114(a) of the Customs Act, ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... r has rejected the request of M/s. Grand Prime Ltd., the supplier and shipper of the impugned goods, by observing that their claim is primarily on the ground of equity and it is a settled point of law that equity has no relevance to a case of taxation or a tax offence, that renders the offending goods liable to confiscation. He has, further, observed that in a case where the goods had been abandoned by the importer and no offence has been made out, either by Customs or D.R.I., the supplier of the goods may have a legitimate claim in equity over such goods. When a tax allegation has been committed and has been made out by the Department for confiscation of the goods and imposition of penalty on the offender, the equitable right of the owner ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Exports who refused to retire the original documents and had returned the same. Thereafter, the appellants tried to enter into negotiation with other Indian buyers. One such buyer, M/s. Armour Fashions, New Delhi agreed to buy the consignment but subsequently refused to clear the same. Thereafter, on 27-5-99, the appellants wrote to the Commissioner of Customs, Calcutta to allow the re-export or to allow transfer in favour of any other buyer, if found in India. The appellants did not receive any reply to their above letter, but came to know that D.R.I. had issued show cause notice, inter alia, to M/s. Olumpia Exports proposing confiscation of the consignment in question for alleged violation by M/s. Olumpia Exports in respect of earlier co ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nfiscated by the Revenue on the ground that the importer of the said Raw Silk earlier also imported three consignments under Advance Import Licences, but without fulfilling the obligation of export of garments manufactured out of such Raw Silk. As such, the fourth consignment imported by the importer in that case was intercepted by the Customs Authorities for the alleged mis-representation made by the importer while obtaining the Advance Import Licences which were subsequently cancelled. We find that in the instant case also, the alleged facts on record are that the importer of the consignment in question, M/s. Olumpia Exports had not fulfilled its export obligation in respect of the earlier four consignments and had also obtained the Advan ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Deepak Biswas was handling the consignment for clearance purposes. Shri Binoy Majumdar is Managing Director of M/s. Fairdeal Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. which is a Customs House Clearing Unit. Shri Sankarlal Sharma, according to the Department, acted as a Middleman Broker and Shri Sushil Kumar Mundra was also a Licence Broker. The evidences discussed by the Commissioner in his impugned Order are in the nature of statements of co-noticees without any independent corroboration. There is nothing on record to show that apart from acting in the ordinary course of business, the said appellants were in any way involved in the conspiracy of fraudulent clearances of five earlier exports. In the case of Shri D. Biswas, the allegations are that he agreed t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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