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9. In respect of the main charge against the appellant that the appellant had obtained endorsement from two different Deputy Commissioners, one for SANCO CFS and another for Gateway CFS, the appellant has given its defence vide its reply dated 20.12.2011 to the show cause notice. The said reply at paragraph 7 is reproduced hereunder:

 With reference to (a) and (b) above, the fact remains that the goods were in a protected area of the customs, viz. Sanco CFS and were examined by the Customs Officers. On 9.9.10, D.C.(Docks) has marked the Bill of Entry initially to A.O. ICBC, then scored out 'ICBC' and marked it to A.O. GATEWAY for 100% examination by destuffing of specified containers. Our client, in his statements has explained that he was in Mumbai at the relevant time. In any case, assigning an officer for examination of the cargo was an administrative exercise by the D.C. (Docks) over which our client had no role and he was stationed in Chennai normally (he works from Tuticorin) and, it is not disputed that, in fact, at the relevant time our client was in Mumbai. Our clients' employees have explained to him that the endorsement taken for the second time was taken by mistake. As such, this was a human error. It had no consequence to the Customs Revenue, as it was only a procedure for examination of the goods. Obviously, the D.C.(Docks) was administratively allocating the work to different officers  not necessarily in the same CFS. Fairly, no malafides are alleged on our client on this account in the show cause notice. Hence, this is an occurrence of no material consequence. In other words, our clients did not act with any motive. Nothing to the contrary is even alleged in the show cause notice. Submission of documents at the Gateway CFS for examination was in accordance with the endorsement of the D.C.(Docks) as explained above. In the above manner, the charge made in paragraph 5(a) of the show cause notice was due to mistake and it was beyond the knowledge of our client who was not in station. The charge made in paragraph 5(b) was consequential to the D.C.(Docks)'s direction mentioned in 5(a). In other words, 5(a) and 5(b) go together in which our clients had no knowledge and error occurred at operational level.