The Bombay High Court has ruled that, CESTAT must ensure that notice was properly served to parties before passing the order.
Dipali Electronics Pvt. Ltd, the petitioner engaged in the manufacture and selling of various electrical/electronic goods which used to be sold to various domestic buyers and held a small-scale industries license in Daman.
The petitioner has been accused of having played role in the procurement of electronic systems and parts for the manufacture of automated teller machines and has been imposed a penalty of Rs. Seventy-Five Lakhs under Section 112 of the Customs Act, 1962. It was argued that the Petitioner was not given notice of hearing.
Petitioner’s Appeal came to be dismissed by an ex-parte order where it was alleged that they had never received any notice of hearing, and could not attend the hearing before CESTAT. Petitioner immediately filed an application for rectification of the mistake before CESTAT which was rejected by an order dated 16th October 2018 which is impugned in this Petition.
Justice K R Shriram & Justice A S Doctor observed that “if a party does not turn up, it is not possible for CESTAT to go through the entire Appeal of the party, consider the grounds and pass a detailed order. At the same time, the CESTAT ought to have checked if a party has been properly served before proceeding to hear the matter and pass the order.”
The bench quashed and set aside the impugned order dated 16th October 2018 and appeal No.C/359/2008 filed by Petitioner was restored to file of CESTAT. The Court further directed the CESTAT to consider the Appeal on its own merits and in accordance with law after giving notice of hearing to Petitioner.
Mr Bharat Raichandani, and Mr Rishabh Jain appeared on behalf of the petitioner and Mr Pradeep S Jetly, Mr J B Mishra and Ms Sangeeta Yadav appeared on behalf of the Respondents.
Subscribe Taxscan Premium to view the JudgmentSupport our journalism by subscribing to TaxscanPremium. Follow us on Telegram for quick updates.
