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TMI Blog2020 (2) TMI 235X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... investigation including that of the appellant, it is found that nobody has spoken against the appellant that the appellant is in any way involved in the manipulation of changing the country of origin documents. The appellant has filed the bill of entry and showed the country of origin as UAE on the basis of documents supplied to him by the supplier based at UAE. Further no document has been produced by Revenue on record to show the involvement of appellant in any way in the said mis-declaration. Further, in the present case the appellant has not claimed any preferential rate of duty. After examining the provisions of Section 111(d) and 111(m), it is found that both the provisions are not applicable in the fact and circumstances of this case. Further, no mala fides has been brought on record on the part of appellant so as to impose penalties on the appellant under Section 112(a) and Section 114AA of the Customs Act, 1962. Appeal allowed - decided in favor of appellant. X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... for all these three voyages, the Master of the vessel MT CLAYTON II has appointed M/s. Marinelinks Shipping Agencies, Opposite Karwar Port Office, Baithkol, Karwar-581302, as the steamer agents of the vessel, as envisaged under Section 148 of the Customs Act, 1962. iv. Verification of the records further indicated that the said vessel MT CLAYTON II had already performed two voyages to the Karwar Port during January 2014 and early part of February 2014 and had separately delivered two parcels of bitumen under IGM No. 03/16.01.2014 filed in respect of Voyage No. 1 and IGM No. 07/03.02.2014 filed in respect of Voyage No.2. v. It was discreetly gathered that the subject vessel MT CLAYTON II, in its Voyage No. 3 declared to be loaded with 2776.436 MT of bitumen from Port Khalid, Sharjah, UAE was scheduled to call at the Karwar port on 28.02.2014 for discharge of cargo into the bonded-warehouse storage tank No. 6 of the importers M/s. Agarwal Industrial Corporation Ltd., situated in the premises of M/s. Tropicana Liquid Storage Pvt. Ltd., Baithkol, Karwar. Accordingly, soon after its arrival at the Karwar Port in the evening of 28.02.2014, the officers of Customs visited on board the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 22/04/2014 to the said show cause notice and contested the allegation made in the show cause notice. The Commissioner of Customs, after following the due process vide the impugned order rejected the submission of the appellant and ordered confiscation of the imported goods under Section 111(m) and 111(d) of the Customs Act, 1962 and imposed redemption fine of ₹ 25,00,000/- (Rupees Twenty Five Lakh Only)in lieu of the confiscation; imposed penalty of ₹ 5,00,000/- (Rupees Five Lakh Only) under Section 112(a) of the Customs Act, 1962 and also imposed a penalty of ₹ 2,00,000/- (Rupees Two Lakh Only) under Section 114AA of the Customs Act, 1962. However, the Commissioner has also imposed penalties on other co-noticees namely steamer agents M/s. Marinelinks Shipping Agencies to the tune of ₹ 2,00,000/- (Rupees Two Lakh Only) and the Master of the vessel ₹ 2,00,000/- (Rupees Two Lakh Only) and the Capt. Krishna Kumar Rs,1,00,000/- (Rupees One Lakh Only) and 50,000/- (Rupees Fifty Thousand Only) under Section 114AA was also imposed on Krishna Kumar and they have paid those penalties and have not challenged the decision imposing penalties on them. It is only th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rt consignments are of "UAE". He further submitted that even after the settlement of payment for trade transaction with Iran is not in accordance with the prescribed procedure by the RBI read with Regulations under FEMA, the same would not in any way make the import transaction prohibited to bring the transaction under the provisions of Section 111(d) of the Act. He then referred to Section 111(m) of the Customs Act which reads as follows. "any goods which do not correspond in respect of value or in any other particular with the entry made under this Act or in the case of baggage with the declaration made under Section 77 in respect thereof, or in the case of goods under transshipment, with the declaration for transshipment referred to in the proviso to sub-Section (1) of the Section 54." 4.2 He further argued that even the provision of Section 111(m) is not applicable in the present case because the said provision comes into play when the imported goods do not correspond to the value or any other particulars which are statutorily required to be declared in the bills of entry in terms of Section 46(4) of the Customs Act, 1962. He also submitted that in the present case, the issu ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... to Iran imposed by Reserve Bank of India. 6. After considering the submissions of the both the parties and perusal of the material on record, I find that in the present case there is no dispute that the impugned goods i.e., bitumen is not prohibited goods either under the Customs Act or Foreign Trade Policy or any other law in force at the time of importation of goods and the Customs in the show cause notice has admitted this fact. It is also a fact that there is no prohibition of impugned goods from Iran either under the Customs Act or Foreign Trade Policy. Further, I find that the only allegation against the appellant in the present case is that in the bill of entry filed by them, they have wrongly mentioned the 'country of origin' as "UAE" whereas in fact the 'country of origin' is from Iran. After perusal of various statements made by the various persons during the course of investigation including that of the appellant, I find that nobody has spoken against the appellant that the appellant is in any way involved in the manipulation of changing the 'country of origin' documents. The appellant has filed the bill of entry and showed the 'country of origin' as "UAE" on the basis ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... lean chit and there is no violation of the provisions of the Customs Act committed by the petitioners and no revenue loss is caused by wrong supply of goods by the foreign supplier, the Collector of Customs was not justified in confiscating the goods." 6.1 Further in the case of Shree Ganesh International (cited supra), the Tribunal in para-8 has held as under: "8. We, however, agree with the learned Advocate that the impugned goods are not liable for confiscation. It has not been denied by the Revenue that the appellants have made the declaration on the Bills of Entry on the basis of documents received by them from their foreign suppliers. The test report of the foreign supplier is dated 9-8-2003 which clearly mentions that the goods are non-texturised fabrics. They have also claimed that a similar consignment imported by them from the same supplier had earlier been cleared as non-texturised polyester fabrics which gave them the bona fide belief that the present consignment would also be of non-texturised variety. In similar situations, the Supreme Court has held in the case of Northern Plastics Ltd. (supra) that the declaration is in the nature of a claim made on the basis of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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