B. Bhattacharya, J. - (1.) By this application under Sec. 130A of the Customs Act, 1962 (hereinafter referred to as the Act), the Commissioner of Customs (Preventive), West Bengal has challenged the order dated 11th July, 2001 passed by the Customs, Excise and Gold (Control) Appellate Tribunal, Eastern Bench, Kolkata thereby dismissing four appeals preferred by the Commissioner of Customs which were heard analogously.
(2.) The facts giving rise to filing of the present appeal may be summed up thus: (a) On 23rd April, 1995 a vehicle was intercepted by the Customs Officers and it was found that 80 bags of plastic granules of Korean origin contained therein. As a follow up action, the business premises of M/s. Rajesh Polyfilm were searched and 360 bags of plastic graules of foreign origin were sized. (b) During the course of investigation, Sri Rajesh Agarwal, one of the partners of M/s. Rajesh Polyfilm submitted that they had purchased the said imported raw material from M/s. Kaiser Marbles and he also produced document relating to the purchase of those materials in the month of December, 1994. (c) Based upon the above information, further enquiries were made from M/s. Kaiser Marbles who in their statement dated 27th April, 1995 admitted having sold the material to the appellants and also disclosed that those materials were purchased by them from M/s. Kamal and Co., Guwahati who had imported the consignment under a bill of entry dated 6th July, 1994. They produced the copies of invoice, packing list, bill of lading number and bill of entry, etc. It was also disclosed that the goods were imported under different advance licenses on transferability. (d) The Offices of the Customs made further investigation and found that the goods in question were shipped on 20th May, 1994 and were cleared from the Customs on 6th July, 1994. Based upon the information given m the document produced M/s. Kaiser Marbles, enquiries were made from Korea to ascertain the date of manufcture of the lot numbers found in the original package of the goods under seizure. Such enquiries from Korea purportedly revealed by a fax message dated 24th May, 1995 that the said lot numbers were manufactured by Korea Petro Chemical Industrial Company, Korea on 31th August, 1994 and 1st September, 1994 respectively. On the basis of above information further enquiries were made M/s. Ka -mal and Co. and M/s. Kaiser Marbles who clarified enclosing a copy of fax message dated 26th June, 1995 of their supplies M/s. Conccntra, Hongkong confirming that the said lot numbers did not pertain to the invoice dated 21st May, 1994. (e) On the basis of the above enquiry, the Revenue entertained a view that the goods in question were not the same that had been imported by M/s. Kamal and Co. and accordingly, a show cause notice was issued on 20th October, 1995 for confiscation of those goods and for imposition of personal penalty. (f) Those two show cause notices were adjudicated by the Additional Commissioner of Customs vide his order dated 20th March, 1997 confiscating absolutely the goods under seizure imposing personal penalty of Rs. 1,00,000/ -, Rs. 75,000/ -, Rs. 56,000/ - and Rs. 50,000/ -respective on M/s. Rajesh Polyfilm, Sri Rajendra Agarwal, Sri Ra -jesh Agarwal and Smt. Sukuntala Agarwal respectively. (g) On appeal against the above order, the Commissioner of Customs set aside the order impugned.
(3.) Being dissatisfied, the Commissioner of Customs preferred an appeal before the Tribunal and as indicated above, the Tribunal by the order impugned herein had dismissed the appeal by affirming the order of Commissioner (Appeals).;