Customs, Excise and Gold Tribunal - Calcutta
Shri Dungarmal Mohta And Others vs Commr. Of Customs (Prev.), W.B. on 2 August, 2001
ORDER
Smt. Archana Wadhwa
1. The appellants are making a prayer for dispensing with the condition of predeposit of following amounts of penalties upon them:-
Name of the Parties Penalties 1. Shri Dungarmal Mohta Rs. 1,00,000/- 2. M/s Jyoti Trading Co. Rs. 50,000/- 3. Shri B. Muthuswamy Rs. 50,000/- 4. M/s Venktessa Road Carrier Rs. 75,000/-
The above penalties have been imposed by the Commissioner (Appeals) on the ground that betelnuts seized by the officers were of foreign origin and were smuggled from Nepal. For the above findings, reliance has been placed by him on the fact that some of the seized bags carried the inscriptions (Biratnagar Nepal. Transit to Calcutta to Nepal). He also refers to the submission of various persons in support of this finding.
2. Shri B.N. Chattopadhyay, ld. Consultant appearing for the appellants submits that the said writing in the seizure memo was made after the preparation of the seizure memo as is evident from the seizure memo itself. They have denied before the adjudicating authority that such writings were there on the gunny bags. As regards the statements of various persons he submits that they were retracted subsequently/and as such was not having any evidentiary value. He also submits that betelnuts are non-notified items under the provisions of Section 123 of the Customs Act, 1962 and as such the Revenue was required to prove the allegations of the smuggled character of the same by production of the direct evidence.
3. I have also heard Shri A.K. Chattopadhyay, ld. JDR for the Revenue who reiterates the reasonings of the authorities below.
4. After taking into consideration the submissions made by ld. Consultant, I find that they have been able to make out a prima-facie case in their favour. Accordingly, I allow all the stay petitions un-conditionally and fix the main appeals on 27th August, 2001.
Dictated and pronounced in the open Court.