- (1.) THE petitioner is one of the registered bidders of the E - auction being held by the Customs authorities for clearing "uncleared cargo" and the petitioner has been issued with an identity card bearing Registration No. 04/03 (Bidder Identity Card ).
(2.) THE petitioner has participated in the E Auction No. 127 (UCC and CCTL), which was conducted on 16. 05. 2005 for clearing the goods 'thick Aluminia linings' covered by Lot No. 5/05. He was declared as successful bidder for Rs. 1,71,000/- and the first respondent accepted the offer made by him and requested/advised him vide their letter dated 28. 12. 2005 to approach the respective custodian/warehouse keeper, make payment in cash or by demand draft and take delivery of the goods. Pursuant to the receipt of the aforesaid letter dated 28. 12. 2005, he made payment to the custodian/warehouse keeper of Rs. 1,71,000/- towards the full sale value under Receipt No. 21248 dated 12. 1. 2006. Besides the aforesaid payment, he also made a further payment of Rs. 17,955/- towards Sales Tax and Surcharge under Receipt No. 1249 dated 19. 1. 200 6 and made another payment of Rs. 1,983/- on 19. 1. 2006 towards Destuffing charges. Thus he has paid the entire sale consideration and other statutory duties and service charges. The goods were destuffed from the container and were loaded in the vehicle on 19. 1. 2006. When the vehicle was about to take the goods out of the warehouse, the warehouse officials abruptly stopped the vehicle stating that there was an instruction not to release the goods and asked the petitioner to wait for one more day. Since the cargo was not released till Tuesday, the petitioner made arrangements to unload the cargo from the vehicle and he sustained loss for a sum of Rs. 15,000/- towards vehicle, loading and unloading charges unnecessarily.
(3.) SINCE the respondents unilaterally denied to release the goods, the petitioner sent representations dated 01. 02. 2006 and 20. 02. 2006 requesting the respondents to release the goods forthwith. Pursuant to that, the petitioner received an order bearing No. 05/05 Sanco CFS Docks (UCC) dated 23. 02. 2006 from the second respondent intimating that due to administrative reasons, the respondents have decided to withdraw the auctioned goods from the sale and hence they are not in a position to deliver the cargo covered under E Auction No. 127 held on 16. 12. 2005. Being aggrieved by the above said order, this writ petition has been filed for the issuance of a Writ of Certiorari to quash the impugned order.;