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2023 (3) TMI 1177 - AT - CustomsRevocation of Customs broker licence - dismissal of request for cross-examination - regulation 22(7) and 20(1) of Customs House Agents Licensing Regulations (CHALR), 2004 - HELD THAT:- It certainly fails in appeal to logic and reason that a licence, issued under the Customs House Agents Licensing Regulations, 2004 that has been revoked by competent authority accompanied by forfeiture of security deposit, can, in the same metaphorical breath, be revived by the same authority for being subjected to revocation and forfeiture of deposit once again. Nor can it don the saving grace of rational purpose in such sequential detriment unless, at best, it had occurred to the licensing authority that one of the two erasures lacked sufficient foundation to sustain or, at worst, that ‘customs brokers’ are fair game for whimsical scattering of retribution. The patent nonapplication of mind in, thus, merging two separate, and independent, proceedings for reasons not adduced, and incomprehensible, should not pass unnoticed. In the circumstances in which the appellant approached the Tribunal on the former occasion, viz., unanticipated revocation despite favourable findings in inquiry report, with no premonition of the justification likely to be appropriated for extinguishment of licence, neither would it have been necessary to visit the statements of the persons till responding to disagreement memo nor to impugn those statements in appeal before the Tribunal then. Hence, such cavalier dismissal of request for cross-examination affects the credibility of the disagreement memo - In combining both the proceedings and, that too, of one which had been remanded by the Tribunal, specifically directing that the deficit, in the not so usual circumstances of supplanting of inquiry findings, be bridged, with another that was on entirely different facts and imputation of breach of obligations, the licencing authority has desecrated the sanctity of higher judicial authority, and compromised the impugned order thereby, warranting status quo ante for revisit of each, separately, for shedding the taint of extraneous influence and prejudiced disposal. Matter remanded back to the licensing authority for fresh decisions - appeal allowed by way of remand.
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