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2016 (1) TMI 957 - HC - CustomsValidity of Complete and overall cap on the duty credit scrip - Incremental Export Incentivisation Scheme (“IEIS”) - misuse of the scheme - Held that:- We find it difficult to accept the proposition that where there was no cap or limit in the 2012 Notification or in any of its surrounding or contemporaneous documents such as public speeches, policy documents, changes in the Handbook of Procedures and so on, such a restriction could be said to have been brought in by the 2013 Notification. We are mindful of the purpose and intent of the 2013 Notification. It is entirely salutary. None should receive unintended benefit from the 2012 Notification. Certain checks and measures are undoubtedly essential and the Department quite wisely has chosen the course of specifying a greater scrutiny for high value claims. There is nothing objectionable about any of this. Indeed, the Petitioners do not object to this. But this a far cry from an insistence that irrespective of the value of the incremental exports, those incentives must be restricted to a paltry ₹ 20 lakhs. - There is no such restriction to be found in the 2012 Notification or in the 2013 Notification. We certainly cannot read it into 2013 Notification. None can claim any benefit or incentive as an absolute right. However, a definite policy is enunciated in the present case. That policy extends an incentive for a demonstrated increase in exports. Its purpose is also clear, viz., to encourage more exports. The policy’s terms must, therefore, receive an interpretation as would advance its stated purpose, viz., to promote and encourage exports. That this is also one of the avowed objects of the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act, 1992 is also not doubted. Where the policy did not itself place any such cap - and plainly it did not, for we find no words of limitation in it, other than those in the eligibility criteria, and these are accepted - any interpretation of the 2013 Notification, therefore, that restricts the incentives in their entirety would therefore be arbitrary, violating the policy’s objective and the mandate of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. All four Petitions succeed in part. We hold that the 2013 Notification places no cap or restriction on the value of the IEIS scrip. The Authorities concerned will consider the Petitioners’ applications on merits bearing in mind our findings and this order, and without any regard to the impugned Clarification of 23rd September 2014. - Decided in favor of appellant and against the revenue.
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