The Kolkata bench of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) quashed the denial of Customs duty exemption on the grounds of procedural lapse.
Sofitel Overseas Private Limited, the appellant assessee filed five Bills of Entry seeking the benefit of Notification No.12/2012-Customs as amended vide Notification No.25/2013-Customs and paid duty @ 7.5% at the time of clearance of the said goods.
The assessee appealed against the order passed by the adjudicating authority for rejecting the benefit.
During the hearing of the appeal, none appeared on behalf of the assessee and A.K.Chowdhury appeared on behalf of the department.
The Bench observed that omission as pointed out does not violate any of the provisions of the Rules referred to above which could entail denial of the exemption. It was also settled law that where a more beneficial exemption is available to the assessee, it cannot be precluded from seeking duty relief thereto.
Also observed that procedural lapses, if any, cannot come in the way of disallowing a substantive benefit to the party, as long as there was no prejudice caused to the contents and the intentions of the documents.
The two-member bench comprising Ashok Jindal (Judicial) and Rajeev Tandon (Technical) quashed the denial of the benefit of duty exemption.
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