The Mumbai Bench of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT), imposed penalty of Rupees 10,000 on the Customs Broker (CB) and observed that the responsibility of CB is to play crucial role in protecting interest of the revenue.
On the basis of such offence report/letter SCN received from Customs, the jurisdictional Commissioner of Customs had concluded that there is a prima facie case against the appellants for having contravened Regulations 10 (a), 10(d), 10(f) and 10(n) of CBLR, 2018. Accordingly, the said Commissioner of Customs, had suspended the CB license of the appellants under CBLR, 2018 vide Order No. 21/2018-19 dated 30.05.2018; further he had issued a SCN No.10/2018-19 dated 30.05.2018 to the appellants for initiating inquiry proceedings under Regulations 17 of CBLR, 2018, against violations of CBLR, 2018.
The Advocate for the appellants contended that the impugned order has not taken into account the inquiry report wherein out of four charges levelled against the appellants, in three charges the case has been dropped in favour of the appellants and in one charge due to signature mismatch, the inquiry officer had held the said charges as proved. However, without holding de novo inquiry or giving reasons for disagreement with the inquiry findings, the case was decided by the Commissioner of Customs against them.
The counsel further submitted that the client of the appellants was a regular importer clearing the goods from Customs in the past; they were not having any prior knowledge of under-valuation or mis-declaration; there is no independent evidence of signature mis-match in the documents rather it is only a opinion of S/Shri Sunil Murlidhar Kalbhor former employee of CB firm M/s. S.V. Shipping and Naresh Jay Kumar Udeshi, Proprietor of the appellants CB. Hence they claimed that there is no violation of the obligations cast on the appellants under CBLR, 2018.
A Two Member Bench of the Tribunal comprising S.K. Mohanty, Member (Judicial) and M.M. Parthiban, Member (Technical) observed that “we are of the considered view that the responsibility of a Customs Broker is to play a crucial role in protecting the interest of Revenue and at the same time he is expected to facilitate expeditious clearance of import/export cargo by complying with all legal requirements.”
“In view of the failure of the appellants to have acted in a proactive manner in fulfilment of the obligation under sub-regulation 10(a) ibid, particularly when they have received the documents from importer through intermediary logistics operator, we find that it is justifiable to impose a penalty of Rs.10,000/- against the appellants, which would be reasonable and would be in line with the judgement of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of K.M.Ganatra” the Bench concluded.
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