A Division Bench of the Supreme Court of India comprising Justice M R Shah and Justice Krishna Murari has recently upheld the order of the High Court of Calcutta, quashing the penalty proceedings initiated under the Customs Act,1962 against the assessee Ektara Exports Pvt. Ltd.
The Tw–judge Bench of the Calcutta High Court had dismissed the appeal the preferred by the Revenue in not interfering with the order passed by the Customs Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal [for short “the Tribunal”) setting aside the penalty imposed under Section 114(iii) of the Customs Act, the appellant approached the Apex Court with the present Appeal.
The Additional Solicitor General, Vikramjit Banerjee, represented the revenue against the respondent-assessee.
On behalf of the Revenue it was submitted that, this was a case of wrong mentioning of the Section and the case would fall under Section 114(i) of the Customs Act. It is pointed out that, in the show cause notice, there was a reference to Section 114(i) or 114(iii) of the Customs Act. It was thus submitted that on mere wrong mentioning of Section, the levy of penalty shall not fail
As nothing has been pointed out as to how the goods can be said to be prohibited goods, the Supreme Court was dissatisfied with the contentions on behalf of the Revenue.
It was observed that “Even otherwise, it is required to be noted that there is a clear finding recorded by the learned Tribunal and confirmed by the High Court that the respondent did not claim any drawback benefit,” and held that “we see no reason to interfere with the impugned judgement passed by the High Court as well as that of the Tribunal” and dismissed the appeal by the revenue.
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