The Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT), Ahmedabad Bench set aside a penalty of 50 lakhs imposed under Section 112(b)(i) of the Customs Act, 1962.
The officers of Airport Intelligence Unit, Ahmedabad found that Jignesh Savaliya working as Duty Officer, M/s Globe Ground India, to be behaving in a suspicious manner with a passenger and found to be in possession with yellow metals. The officers conducted personal search of Jignesh Savaliya whereby it was found he was carrying 47 gold bars. The officers seized the said gold under Seizure memo and it emerged that smuggling racket was financed by Jitendra Rokad, Mehul Bhimani, Raju Goswami, Vipul Joshi and Lalit Jain.
Show cause notices were issued proposing confiscation of the seized goods under Sections 111(d), 111(i), 111(I) and 111(m) of the Customs Act, 1962 and demanding customs duty and imposition of penalty under Section 112(a) and 112 (b) and Section 114A and Section 114AA read with Section 123 of the of the Customs Act.
The Bench consisting of Ramesh Nair, Judicial Member and Raju, Technical Member held that “We find that role of the Appellant in the whole episode has been derived only from oral statements of Ms. Divya Kishore Bhundia and Shri Jignesh Savalia. Statements of above said persons remain uncorroborated during the investigation. The statement of co-accused cannot be relied upon, particularly when appellant has denied his involvement in respect of the goods in question.”
“In the present case persons were not examined in the adjudication proceedings and as such their statements are not admissible for framing the charge against the appellant as evidence under the provisions of Section138B of Customs Act. The appellant cannot come within the ambit of Section 112(b) because appellants had never acquired possession or in any way concerned in any of the activities mentioned in the Section or any measure dealing with any goods which the appellant knew or had reason to believe are liable to confiscation and that mensrea is an important ingredient for imposing a penalty on the person enumerated in Section112(b) of the Customs Act” the Tribunal added.
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