The New Delhi Bench of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) held that the statements recorded under Section 108 of the Customs Act, 1962 are admissible before the court of law.
The appellant being the Customs Broker (‘CB’) has challenged the order, whereby the Commissioner of Customs revoked the Customs Broker Licence and ordered for forfeiture of the security deposit of Rs.75,000/, however refrained from imposing any penalty on the appellant.
On adjudication, by the impugned order, the allegation under Section 11(d) were held to be not sustainable, however, the ‘CB’ was held guilty for violation of Regulation 11(n) of CBLR. Accordingly, the licence was revoked along with the order for forfeiture of the whole amount of the security deposit. Being aggrieved, the present appeal has been filed by the appellant before this Tribunal.
The appellant in his submissions denied that M/s. Royal International was a dummy importer as the Proprietor, Shri Praveen Singh Patwal being busy with other fieldwork had appointed Rajesh Bansal to attend his day to day work.
The Counsel also submitted that under Regulation 11(n) the Customs Broker is not required to personally and physically visit at the declared address of the IEC holder to verify their antecedent as to whether they are operating from the address given in the IEC certificate. The appellant having duly adhered to KYC norms by obtaining two IDs and IEC certificate and by verifying from sites of Income Tax Department and DGFT, respectively, extreme punishment of revocation of license was not sustainable.
Referring to the provisions of Regulation 11(n) and the judicial pronouncements, the Authorised Representative submitted that Narula (‘CB’) in his statement recorded under Section 108 of the Customs Act accepted that he has not verified the antecedents of the importer as the documents were handed over by Shri Badlani, an Associate of Rajesh Bansal, who is not the IEC holder and he also admitted that the imports were made through a dummy IEC holder.
A Two-Member Bench comprising Binu Tamta, Member (Judicial) and P. V. Subba Rao, Member (Technical) observed that “Statements recorded under Section 108 of the Customs Act are admissible before a Court of Law and in view of the admissions made in these statements, he referred to the settled principles that what is admitted need not be proved. We therefore, do not find any infirmity or perversity in the conclusion arrived at in imposing the punishment by the impugned order.”
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