CC Vs. ANANT SPINNING MILLS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal is filed by the Commissioner of Customs (Appeals), Bhopal on the ground that the Commissioner (Appeals) has wrongly dropped the penalty of Rs. 25,000/ - on the respondent company.

(2.) THE respondent, M/s. Anant Spinning Mills are engaged in the manufacture of cotton yarn, synthetic blended yarn and are a 100 % EOU. They were availing the benefit of Notification No. 53/97 -Cus dated 3.6.97 under which they were exempted from customs duty subject to fulfilment of certain conditions. They imported 16 consignments of lubricant oil without payment of duty on the basis of 19 forged certificates in the form of Annexure -A on which their Commercial Executive had made forged signatures of the Range offices. The certificate in the form of Annexure -A was required under -Circular No. 14/98 -Cus dated 10.3.98. They had also not executed the requisite Bond at the time of import of the goods. The offence was booked against the respondent for illegal import of the goods on forged documents without complying the conditions of the Notification No. 53/97 -Cus dated 3.6.97. However, a penalty of Rs. 10,000/ - on Shri Telegaonkar, Commercial Executive of the respondent company and a penalty of Rs. 25,000/ - on the respondent under Section 112 of the Customs Act was imposed. The Commissioner (Appeals) under the impugned order following the decision of the Tribunal reported in the case of Commissioner of Customs v. Anant Spinning Mills reported in did not find any merit in the appeal filed by the Department before him and he only strongly warned the company to be more careful in future.

(3.) IT was pleaded on behalf of the Revenue that since a penalty of Rs. 10,000/ - has been upheld by the Commissioner (Appeals) for forging Annexure A certificate by the employee of the respondents, the respondents are vicariously liable for penalty for the action of their employee. Therefore, penalty was wrongly dropped by the Commissioner (Appeals) It was pleaded that this very issue came up in appeal in case of this very appellant before this Tribunal. The Division Bench of this Tribunal in that case as reported in had decided that "Shri V.K. Jain and D.R. Badhwar were not having the knowledge of activity of Shri Atul Telegaonkar who had prepared certain documents which were found not genuine. Shri Telegaonkar admitted that the documents were prepared by him without the knowledge of other officers. There is no evidence on record to implicate Sim V.K. Jain and Shri Budhwar for their alleged role for getting the goods cleared illegally without payment of duty". It was pleaded that the same situation is in the present case. Part of the transactions were decided earlier by the Tribunal and the present appeal is for another part of those transactions. Since a view has been taken by the Division Bench that Shri Telegaonkar has prepared the document without knowledge of the officers of the company, the company cannot be held liable for his activity. It was also pleaded that in case of Arebee Star Maritime Agencies reported in , the Tribunal has held that act of employee not proved to be permitted by the company policy or the Director are beyond the of employment for which neither the company nor its Director could be liable for penalty. It was pleaded that since in the present case, Shri Telegaonkar has himself forged the documents to show his efficiency without intimating the senior officers of the company and this act of Shri Telegaonkar is beyond the terms of employment and the company has not directed him to prepare the forged documents, therefore the penalty should not be imposed on the company.