KULBHUSHAN JAIN Vs. COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE above captioned appeals have been directed against the common order -in -original dated 31 -12 -2001 vide which the Commissioner of Customs had imposed penalty of Rs. 1 lakh on appellant No. 1 and of Rs. 1.5 lakh on appellant No. 2.

(2.) SHRI Subhkaran Singhal, appellant, is proprietor of M/s. Singhal Bearing Co., while Shri Kulbhushan Jain, appellant, is an employee/Manager in that company. They claimed ball bearings valued at Rs. 13,36,500/ - which was initially seized by the Special Staff of DCP, West Zone, Delhi Police, and later on obtained by the DRI, Nepal Division, by the orders of the Court, but failed to produce any document regarding the legal importation of those ball bearings which were of foreign origin. The seizure of the ball bearings was made by the Police on 26 -9 -2000 from House No. RZ -27, Sayed Gaon, Delhi, which belonged to appellant No. 2 as he had taken the same on monthly rent of Rs. 500/ - from Shri Om Prakash Yadav, the owner of the property. On completion of investigation and after recording statements of both the appellants as well as of Shri Pawan Kumar Gupta and of other concerned persons, the show cause notice was served on both the appellants for the confiscation of the seized goods and for imposition of penalty on them under Section 112(b) of the Act. After getting their reply wherein the appellant No. 2 claimed the goods for having imported the same, the Commissioner of Customs passed the impugned order vide which he ordered the confiscation of the goods with option to the owner to redeem the same on payment of redemption fine of Rs. 3,50,000/ - and also imposed penalties on both the appellants, detailed above.

(3.) THE learned Counsel for the appellants has not been able to assail the impugned order of the Commissioner of Customs on merits. He has not disputed that the appellant No. 2, who claimed the goods, had failed to produce any document regarding the legal import, acquisition of the goods. He, in his statement no doubt stated that he was importing the ball bearings of foreign origin in the name of his firm from Dubai for the last two years, but has failed to produce any document to corroborate his statement. He, no doubt had produced one bill of entry to show the import of the goods by him, but that did not relate to the seized goods at all. His manager Shri Kulbhushan Jain, appellant No. 1, also had admitted that the seized goods belonged to his employer, appellants No. 2, but he too failed to produce any document to prove the legal import of those goods.