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2020 (1) TMI 204 - AT - CustomsImposition of penalties - default on the part of Customs Broker to declare the correct value of goods - During the assessment of the bill of entry, it was found by the department that the value declared by the appellant was much lower than the value of contemporaneous imports - main allegation is that that the importer had outsourced the entire operations to the appellant customers broker who had deliberately misdeclared the quantity of the goods in order to evade payment of customs duty. HELD THAT:- The charge of customs duty is on the goods imported or exported. The importer or exporter is therefore liable to pay the customs duty. It does not matter if the importer or exporter entrusts this responsibility to somebody else, may be his own employee or an agent. The liability is on the importer or exporter only. The definition of importer also includes “any person who holds himself out to be importer”. In this case the appellant has not claimed to be importer. In fact, the bills of entry mention the name of the main importer as the importer for the consignments. Therefore, the liability of customs duty rests only upon the importer - Accordingly Section 114A also applied to the importer in this case. It cannot apply to customs broker whose offence was mis-declaring facts in the bills of entry. Section 114AA is meant for such offences and a penalty under this has already been imposed by the Deputy Commissioner which has been paid by the appellant. Appeal allowed - decided in favor of appellant.
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