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2014 (10) TMI 673 - AT - CustomsRevocation of Custom House Broker’s Licence - Held that:- Conclusion reached by the Commissioner that the appellant did not fulfill all the conditions under Regulation 11(n) may not be proper. In the absence of non-existence of the importer and in the presence of authorization by the importer and when the importer is present, we cannot expect a custom house agent to go on investigating as to why a person has filed so many bills of entry and what are the goods coming and what is happening. This is the job of investigating agencies which are engaged in this work in custom house as well as in DRI. No doubt because of their role only these facts have come out. Under these circumstances, it will be difficult to sustain the stand that the offence is so grave that licence of the broker cannot be continued to undertake this activity further. So long as a CHA takes responsibility over the work of his employee and exercises adequate care and supervision, there is nothing wrong or there cannot be anything wrong if the proprietor does not attend to day to day work but exercise only supervision. In the statement there is no indication and no clarification has been asked as to what kind of supervision he exercised over his staff and how he tried to ensure that they did not do any mischief. It has to be taken note that in this case the concerned clerk had been given an ‘H’ Card and therefore it cannot be said that he was totally an unauthorized person or unknown person or unqualified person for this purpose. Unfortunately department has not proved this by investigating the issue by looking on this issue from a different angle. What emerges is the fact that overall the supervision over the work of Shri. Saravanan was not very strict and generally he was given a free hand. Therefore we find that in this case it cannot be definitely said that the CHA has performed to the levels accepted by him. At the same time whether the broker licence should be suspended and revoked on these grounds is a question with which we are not able to agree with the Commissioner totally. Probably in this case the punishment is too harsh - order of revocation of licence of the customs broker is set aside and the Commissioner is directed to issue the licence afresh. It is made clear that the order imposing penalty of ₹ 50,000/- and forfeiting the security already deposited by the appellant is upheld. In the result the appellant will have to apply for a fresh licence and deposit fresh security. Thereafter the Commissioner will permit issue of licence to the appellant - Decided partly in favour of CHA.
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