- (1.)THE petitioner No.1, which is a Public Limited Company engaged in the business of manufacturing engineering goods, has filed the present petition challenging show cause notice being F. No. S/14 -06/2000 Group VII dated 28.04.2000 issued by Deputy Commissioner of Customs (Gr,VII), Kandla [Annexure 'J'] and Order in Original No. DC/KDL/DC/DSG/08/2000 Group VII (Exp) dated 21.08.2000 passed by by Deputy Commissioner of Customs (Gr. VII), Kandla [Annexure "M"].
(2.)THE petitioner -Company is manufacturing carbon steel/non -alloy steel forgings machined and these goods are exported to foreign countries. It is contended that in exercise of powers conferred, the Central Government has declared EXIM Policy for the period 1997 -2002. In Chapter 7 of the Bank Book of Procedures (Volume 1), the policy contains Duty Exemption / remission scheme. Paragraph 7.32 of the Policy is with regard to Duty Entitlement Passbook Scheme [DEPB]. Under the DEPB Scheme, different credit rates are prescribed for various goods. Credit for each export of the goods is to be given by the licencing Authority to the exporter in accordance with the rates so prescribed. The goods which were exported by the petitioner Company were carbon -steel flanges made by forging process and, therefore, they were entitled to get DEPB credit rates under serial No. 71(i) of the table prescribed by the respondents. It is the say of the petitioner Company that they submitted the correct and detailed description of the goods exported by it in the shipping bills and also DEPB Credit under serial No. 71 (i) of the Table. It is further contended that for export of such goods, the shipping bills were required to be assessed by the Customs Officer and, therefore, the shipping bills were also submitted for assessment to Customs Officer at Kandla as and when the exports were made by the petitioner Company. However, the shipping bills were assessed by the customs with a remark "export allowed provisionally subject to confirmation of applicability of DEPB". The requests made by the petitioner Company for assessing the shipping bills finally was not acceded to by the Customs for a long time and ultimately a letter was written by the Joint Commissioner on 08.02.2000 informing the petitioner that sample of the exported goods were sent to IIT, Powai and shipping bills would be finally assessed after receipt of the test report. The test report was sent by ITT, Powai to the Customs Department. It is the contention of the petitioner that though the goods in question were confirmed as made of carbon steel and by forging process, the Customs Department did not assess the shipping bills finally, and instead,a show cause notice was issued under section s 113 and 114 of the Customs Act proposing to confiscate the exported goods and also proposing to deny the benefit of DEPB under serial No. 71(i). Eventhough objections were filed by the petitioner, the objections were over -ruled and the 2nd respondent passed an order dated 21.08.2000 whereby the proposal to confiscate the goods and to penalize the petitioners were dropped but held that DEPB under serial No. 71(i) of the table as claimed by the petitioner company was not available, and the same was denied.
(3.)BEING aggrieved by the aforesaid order, the petitioner has filed the present petition.
Heard the learned counsel for the respective parties and as the parties are at ad -idem with the contentions raised in the petition and since question involved in the present petition is covered by the decision dated 21.12.2005 rendered by this Court, to which one of us was a party [Coram: D.A. Mehta and H.N. Devani, JJ.] in Special Civil Applications No. 1327/01, 2380/01 and 1326/01 in the case of Economic Traders (Guj) Ltd. and Another vs. Union of India and Others, it is not necessary to enter into discussion on merits of the controversy between the parties and hence neither detailed facts nor submissions of the respective sides are required to be recorded.