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2022 (11) TMI 513 - AT - CustomsScope for invoking regulation 13(d), 13(e) and 13(n) of Customs House Agents Licensing Regulations (CHALR), 2004 - alleged wrongful claim of benefit of notification no. 40/2006-Cus dated 1st May 2006 and no. 98/2009-Cus dated 11th September 2009 - HELD THAT:- The impugned entry has claimed the benefit of an exemption notification and it is upto the assessing authority to determine entitlement thereof. It is also on record that the assessing authority preferred to resort to provisional assessment under section 18 of Customs Act, 1962 which was finalized in accordance with the manner prescribed therein sans any proposal to disturb the claim of such benefits. There is nothing on record to indicate that the ‘proper officer’ has had his hands forced or his mind beguiled to permit such availment in deviation from the procedure laid down in law. In further proceedings initiated under section 28 of Customs Act, 1962 to deny the benefit of exemption and to recover differential duty, the ‘proper officer’ so empowered had discarded the proposal in the show cause notice and its reversal on appeal of Commissioner of Customs before the first appellate authority is pending before the Tribunal on challenge of the importer. It was within this factual matrix that the outcome of proceedings initiated under Customs House Agents Licensing Regulations, 2004 on the charges levelled against the appellant herein should have been decided. And that is the test to which the impugned order must be subjected. It is no less of an oddity that the finding in the impugned order that the appellant had not discharged the duties of customs broker with utmost speed and efficiency and without any delay is based upon the same alleged misconstruing adopted to allege loss of revenue. The only ground for concluding that there has been loss of revenue is the reversal of the dropping of proceedings under Customs Act, 1962 by order of first appellate authority. Such appellate revision does not obfuscate non-leviability of duty opined by the assessing and adjudicating authorities which impedes a final conclusion, as yet, on that score - There is no allegation, let alone evidence, that the appellant did not demonstrate speed and efficiency or had wantonly delayed anything as far as the impugned goods are concerned - there are no reason to uphold the finding of the respondent-Commissioner that regulation 10(n) of Customs Broker Licencing Regulations, 2018 had been contravened. None of the charges remain. The revocation of licence and other detriments have no foundation on which they can be sustained - Appeal allowed.
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