SURANA INDUSTRIES LTD. Vs. COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Appellant before us has brought to our notice that there is a conflict of opinion amongst the Members of the Tribunal. The learned Judicial Member by his separate judgment directed the matter to be remanded to the Commissioner of Customs to re-adjudicate the matter within two months from the date of the receipt of the order. This remand was ordered in view of the technical expert opinion produced by the Appellant that the items in question are non-alloy melting scrap and not non-alloy steel re-rollable scrap. The learned Judicial Member further held that on a perusal of three certificates of experts also it was not possible for him to say that the imported item is a re-rollable scrap. The learned technical Member, however, held that the expert opinion of the National Metallurgical Laboratory would have to be given preference over the other individual opinions furnished and of the certificate of the Chartered Engineer dated 22-10-2002 which was produced much later. In so holding, the learned technical Member dismissed the appeal filed by the Petitioner herein. Finally, he observed:

(2.) Learned Counsel for the Appellant has supported the learned Judicial Member's judgment and said that it was correct in law. Counsel for the Revenue stuck to its guns and said that the learned technical Member and the third Member who disagreed with the learned Judicial Member are on the other hand correct in law. We find that this is an old appeal of 2003 and the Appellant before us is a small scale industry on whom penalty of rupees six lakhs has been levied.

(3.) Without going into any further details, we find that since the goods (post confiscation) have since been sold, it would be in the interest of justice to set aside the penalty of rupees six lakhs while otherwise maintaining the order of the learned technical Member and the learned third Member. This is also in the fitness of things considering that the National Metallurgical Laboratory had differed from the other expert opinions and therefore there were two views possible. We order accordingly. However, there will be no order as to costs. The appeal is disposed of accordingly.