The Chennai bench of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) held that the amendment or conversion of shipping bills under section 149 of the Customs Act,1962 allowable even if the goods are not examined at the time of export.
Regin Exports, the appellant assessee was engaged in processing of imported Raw Cashew Nuts and exporting the resultant Cashew Kernels to various countries by availing export benefit schemes with different shipping bills and made two applications for a Duty-Free Import Authorization (DFIA) Licence and the Commissioner (Appeals) rejected the request for the conversion.
The assessee appealed against the order passed by the Commissioner (Appeals) for rejecting the request for conversion of shipping bills.
S. Adithya, the counsel for the assessee contended that Section 149 of the Customs Act defines that there was no time limit specified under the section to deny the request for amendment of shipping bill as time-barred.
Further submitted that the said section does not impose any condition that amendment can be allowed only if goods are examined and the decision made by the lower authorities was not as per the law and liable to be deleted.
R. Rajaraman, the counsel for the department relied on the decisions made by the lower authorities and contended that the rejection of requests for conversion of shipping bills on the ground of the request filed was time-barred and also that the goods were not subjected to examination before export.
The Bench observed that the department cannot deny the request for conversion of shipping bills holding that the goods were not examined as being filed as free shipping bills and that Section 149 of the Customs Act does not stipulate such condition.
The two-member bench comprising Sulekha Beevi (Judicial) and Vasa Seshagiri Rao (Technical) held that the request for conversion of shipping bills cannot be denied while allowing the appeal filed by the assessee.
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