EXOTICA GLOBAL PVT LTD Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The writ petitioner assails an order passed by the Settlement Commission refusing to receive the petitioner's application for a settlement of the claim. By a notice dated December 29, 2008, the Customs authorities required, inter alia, the petitioner to show cause as to why basic customs duty in excess of about Rs.1.17 crore should not be recovered from the noticees under section 28 of the Customs Act, 1962 for removing 36 MT Mulberry Raw silk or raw silk from the Falta Special Economic Zone without payment of customs duty in violation of a notification of May 1, 2006 read with the relevant scheme. Following the reply to the show cause notice, adjudication proceedings commenced and culminated in the claim as made being maintained. The petitioner and others affected had a choice of assailing such order before a statutory forum as recognised in the Act. Instead, the petitioner approached the Settlement Commission under Chapter XIV- A of the Act.

(2.) The Settlement Commission refused to entertain the application and it is such order which has been challenged by way of the present petition. The petitioner says that the Settlement Commission failed to appreciate the wide import of the expression "any proceeding" that appears in amended section 127-A (b) of the Act.

(3.) Subsequent to the amendment effected in or about the year 2007. "case" in the relevant chapter of the Customs Act is defined in the section 127-A (b) as follows: