UNION TRADING CO. Vs. CC

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellants had imported "Dry Ginger" of Chinese origin and filed two Bills of Entry dated 21.4.99 declaring the price of the goods at US 550 per MT. On the basis of data collected from the website of another party as also from "Public Ledger", the original authority enhanced the price of the goods to US 1200 per MT for the purpose of finalization of provisional assessments. The assessee had already cleared the goods against payment of 50% of duty calculated on the basis of unit price of US 900 per MT as well as production of Bank Guarantee for the balance amount. The original authority also imposed penalties on the assessee in relation to the two Bills of Entry. The appeal preferred by the party against that authority's decision was dismissed on merits by the Commissioner (Appeals). Hence the present appeal and application. This is the third round of litigation before us. In the first round, we had remanded the case to the original authority. That authority passed a fresh order against the assessee. The appeal filed against that order was dismissed by the Commissioner (Appeals) for want of compliance with Section 129E of the Customs Act without looking into the merits of the case. It was the second appeal preferred by the assessee to this Bench against the said order of the Commissioner (Appeals) that was allowed by way of remand to the Commissioner (Appeals). In that order, dated 26.12.2005, we had observed that the assessee was entitled to waiver of predeposit and stay of recovery and, accordingly, we directed the lower appellate authority to dispose of the assessee's appeal on merits without insisting on predeposit.

(2.) PURSUANT to our second remand order, Ld. Commissioner (Appeals) passed the impugned order upholding the decision of the original authority. In the result, the appellants are aggrieved by penalties totalling to Rs. 5.8 lakhs imposed on them, apart from redemption fine etc.

(3.) AFTER hearing both sides and considering their submissions, we are inclined to grant waiver of predeposit and slay of recovery in respect of the duty and penalty amounts, having found prima facie case made out by them. It may be recollected that we had found such a case for the appellants in the earlier round also.