SHAIKH AZIZUR RAHIMAN Vs. COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant is challenging the imposition of penalty of Rs. 1,00,000/ - imposed under Section 112(a) of the Customs Act, 1962 in terms of the re -adjudication done by the Commissioner in the impugned order. The appellant had challenged the previous order passed by the Commissioner in order -in -original No. 79/97, dated 28 -8 -97. In the said order, the Commissioner had enhanced the assessment of the imported car and had imposed penalty of Rs. 4,02,404/ - being an amount equal to the duty sought to be evaded under Section 114A of the Customs Act, 1962. The Tribunal by their Final Order Nos. 1081 -1090, dated 10 -7 -2001 [2001 (137) E.L.T. 1041 (T)] set aside the imposition of the said mandatory penalty imposed under Section 114A of the Customs Act and remanded the matter in respect of the appellants prayer for re -determining the correct value of the imported car. In the impugned order, the Commissioner has accepted the valuation of the car and has dropped the proceedings but however, has imposed the penalty under Section 112(a) of the Customs Act which had not been imposed in the previous order -in -original and hence the appellants are aggrieved with the impugned order. The Revenue has filed a ROM application which came up for consideration and as the said application had been filed belatedly and was hit by time -bar therefore the said ROM application was rejected.

(2.) APPEARING on behalf of the appellants ld. Counsel submitted that there is no cause to impose penalty of Rs. 1 lakh under Section 112(a) of the Customs Act for the reason that the question of valuation has been decided in the appellants favour and the proceedings have been dropped. It is stated that the Commissioner cannot proceed beyond the remand order of the Tribunal and cannot impose penalty which has not been there in the previous order -in -original. Therefore, he submits that the impugned order be set aside.

(3.) APPEARING on behalf of the Revenue Id. DR Shri A. Jayachandran reiterates the findings and justifies the imposition of the penalty.