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2020 (6) TMI 500 - CALCUTTA HIGH COURTExemption for Customs duty - import of three textile machines - inclusion of new items in the exemption - Amendment is retrospective or prospective - Section 5 of the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act, 1992 - HELD THAT:- The question whether the relevant customs notification was retrospective in nature becomes academic. However, since the Director General of Foreign Trade had declined to grant relief to the company holding that the said notification had no retrospective effect and the learned Single Judge, on the other hand, allowed the writ petition taking a contrary view, the said issue is also addressed - aforesaid notification dated November 04, 1999, was introduced for further amending the notification No. 29/97-cus dated the 1st April, 1997 and giving a retrospective effect would mean that the same would relate back to 1st April, 1997. The amended EXIM Policy was made effective from 1st April, 1999. Such interpretation, therefore, leads to an absurdity where the customs notification would be made operative even before the EXIM Policy came into being. If the law maker, by way of amendment, introduces anything which was left out or omitted by mistake in the original provision, then such amendment may operate retrospectively with effect from the date of the original provision - The relevant amendment in the customs notification has not been made for rectification of any such mistake. Two additional import items were introduced to give effect to the amendment of the EXIM Policy. The inclusion of the import items namely, ‘textile’ and ‘chemical sectors’, if construed to be operative retrospectively, then the same would entail refund of all customs duties already levied under the ten per cent customs duty regime. Such a consequence was never the intendment of the amendment. Appeal allowed.
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