A division bench of New Delhi CESTAT, in M/s KVS Cargo v. Commissioner of Customs (Gen) New Delhi, held that revocation of Customs Broker license is too grave for non-declaration of details of imported goods correctly in the bill of entry.
Aggrieved by a departmental order revoking the Customs Broker (CB) License and forfeiting the whole amount of security deposit of Rs.75,000/-, the appellant has preferred an appeal before the Tribunal.
On investigation by Customs authorities, it was found that the undeclared goods were found bearing the label “Made in India” and also revealed that Dinesh, proprietor of M/s Shivay Enterprises was also shown only on record whereas the actual importer was Vinod Kumar. Based on the findings authority charged allegations and revoked the Customs Broker License and also ordered forfeiture of the security deposit.
The counsel for appellant Ashish Batra argued that bill of entry filed by the appellant was made on the basis of the document submitted by the importer and they were not expected to know the entire goods in that consignment.
On the counterpart, the counsel for department relied upon the decision of first authority. Regarding the ownership, both the persons have admitted the fact that Vinod Kumar is the owner of the imported goods but Dinesh was shown as proprietor of M/s Shiva Enterprises.
The bench comprising Justice (Dr) Satish Chandra, President and V. Padmanabhan Member (Technical) while considering the facts, observed that evoking the CB license would be too grave a penalty to be imposed for the above violation. Final justice laid down by the CESTAT in this appeal was the penalty of Rs.50,000/- on the appellant, in addition to forfeiture of the whole amount of security deposit.
