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29. Circular No.13 of 2005 dated 11th March, 2005, issued by the Central Board of Excise and Customs, stated that the incomplete or incorrect filing of IGM should not be treated as proper filing of IGM and that, only on filing the same in the proper format or after the amendment, IGM be treated as proper filing. It further pointed out that the amendments that are normally carried out are divided as major and minor amendments, which are as follows:

MAJOR AMENDMENTS:
(i) Addition of extra entries (Line numbers in the IGM)
"3. IGM Message Transmission: At present, the IGM Messages are being sent by Customs to the Custodians, i.e., Chennai Port Trust and CCTL as soon as the IGM is submitted by the Steamer Agents/Shipping Lines in the ICES System. It is observed that IGM, although incomplete, is filed and a IGM No. is obtained by the Steamer Agents/ Shipping lines well in advance and amendments are being filed regularly even after the arrival of the vessel. Whenever there is an amendment, the ICES System sends the amendment IGM messages to the Custodians. Thus the IGM messages sent to custodian are substantially incomplete. Henceforth the IGM messages shall be transmitted to the Custodians only after the "entry inwards: is granted for the Vessel.

46. Learned senior counsel further referred to the provisions of Section 157 of the Customs Act relating to the authority of the Board to prescribe Rules and issue circulars. By amending the IGM, all that the Customs Authority has done herein is to superimpose the contract on the petitioners, which violates the contractual rights and obligations between the petitioners and the other authority. The provisions of Section 30 of the Customs Act do not provide for any amendment to the IGM at the behest of the consignee or any other body. The responsibility of the petitioners as an agent of the consignor extends upto the CFS, as given under the IGM. The amendment on IGM thus resting with the petitioners herein, the unilateral alteration of the IGM, taking refuge under the impugned notices and without notification to the shipping lines, is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. Further, through Public Notices, it is not open to the Customs Authorities to amend the IGM, since the power as regards the amendment to the IGM is traceable to Section 30 of the Customs Act and nothing beyond.

72. Contrary to the assertion of the petitioners herein, changes made in the IGM as regards the CFS given therein, by itself, does not result in an amendment to the IGM. It does not fall either under major or minor amendment and such change does not make the IGM an untrue declaration by the Steamer Agent to fall under Sub-Section (3) to Section 30 of the Customs Act, to result in a penal consequence. The movement of the goods from the Port to the CFS is only to facilitate an adjudication process and the facility to decongest a Port. Given the fact that the Public Notifications are as a result of a consensus reached among the various stakeholders, the contention now put forth by the petitioners that it interferes with their statutory obligations, does not merit any acceptance. When the Customs Department has specifically referred to what are major and minor amendments to the IGM and the fact that even non-mentioning of the CFS would not make the IGM as incorrect or incomplete, for the simple reason that the omission by the steamer agent to name the CFS is made good by the CCTL, I fail to understand the logic of the petitioners' contention that such changes would attract penal action. If threat of penal action on this front is the only great apprehension of the petitioners, then, with the circular of the Customs Department listing out the major and minor amendments and changing the CFS not being one to be treated as an amendment to the IGM and with the line of contention taken in these Writ Petitions by the Revenue, that this does not amount to any amendment, then I do not find there exists anything for the petitioners to complain. It is a well settled principle of law that the understanding put forth by the highest statutory body to the provisions of the Act are good guide to the understanding one would have to have, on the scope of the provisions of the Act. In the circumstances, going by the purport of the IGM filing and the declaration as to the content of the goods carried by the Vessel to be unloaded, the truthfulness of the declaration and the bona fides or otherwise of the declaration found untrue to attract the penal consequences, has to be seen from the substantive content of the declaration from the angle of the Customs Act provisions and not from the procedural content relating to the movement of the unloaded goods to a customs station like the ICD or the CFS, which is under the effective control of the Customs. If the petitioners can have no objection to the Customs keeping the goods in the custody of the Port as a custodian pending clearance from the Customs, equally so to a CFS named by the consignee.