BRAMHANAND KANOJIA Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner is challenging an Order-in-Appeal dtd. 10/11/2023 passed by the Additional Director General of Foreign Trade (ADGFT) whereby the said authority has refused to entertain the appeal filed by the petitioner on the ground that the rejection letter issued by the Joint Director General of Foreign Trade (JDGFT) is not a decision or order passed by the adjudicating authority and since Sec. 15 of Foreign Trade (Development Regulation) Act 1992 provides for an appeal from an order made by the adjudicating authority, the appeal is not admissible.

(2.) The petitioner is engaged in the business of manufacturing optical fibers. The petitioner applied for issuance of duty credit scrip under the Merchandise Export from India Scheme (MEIS) with respect to the goods exported to an overseas buyer at UAE but on the instructions of overseas buyer the goods were warehoused in the Free Trade and Warehousing Zone (FTWZ) Unit at Andhra Pradesh.

(3.) The above transactions were for the period January 2016 to March 2016. The application made by the petitioner came to be rejected on 3/6/2020 and the said rejection was challenged before this Court in Writ Petition No.5156 of 2021. The Co-ordinate Bench of this Court passed a detailed order and observed that in the absence of documentary evidence, MEIS benefit cannot be granted merely on the basis of pleadings which are prima facie insufficient on the face of record. However, after upholding the rejection order, the coordinate bench granted the petitioner one more opportunity to approach the respondents by filing a fresh application for MEIS benefit along with the entire documentary evidence pertaining to the petitioners' transaction with the overseas buyer. Para 12 and 12.1 of the said order read as under :