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2024 (1) TMI 347 - CESTAT BANGALORELevy of penalty under Regulation 22 and 23 of Customs Broker Licensing Regulations (CBLR), 2013 - prohibition on Customs Broker from working in the jurisdictional area of the Cochin Customs Commissionerate till the completion of the adjudication proceedings against the Customs Broker, which is pending at Mumbai - HELD THAT:- From the records, it is seen that the Customs Broker was issued with two show cause notices one for availment of fraudulent drawback claims by the Commissioner of central Excise Coimbatore and the second SCN by the Commissioner of Customs Cochin for obtaining documents from the government records without authorization of the proper officer. It seen that these two notices are completely on different grounds issued by different Commissionerate for the offence committed by two different employees of the appellant. In the first show cause, it was found that Shri Murthy one of the employees of the appellant had obtained signatures of the authorized representatives of the exporter on blank shipping bills and the same were used for claiming fraudulent drawback. This fact was admitted before the enquiry officer and based on the enquiry report the matter was adjudicated - The impugned order which deals with the second show cause notice issued by the Commissioner of Customs Cochin is entirely of different grounds which involves another employee Shri Pradeep Nangia of the same appellant. In this case the employee had taken a copy of unsigned letter of the Deputy Commissioner without proper authorization thus violating the Sub-clauses 11(h) and 11(i) of the Regulations. Since the proceedings are on entirely different grounds, the Final order issued by the Mumbai Commissionerate will have no bearing in as much as the penalty is concerned. Moreover, the notices are on different employees of the same customs broker and the offences committed vary and commission of offence is at Coimbatore and Cochin, the orders issued by the Commissioner Mumbai cannot completely exonerate the appellant from penalty. However as per the impugned order the suspension of license in the jurisdiction of Cochin was only till the date of adjudication proceedings by Mumbai and the adjudications proceedings having finalized the suspension within the jurisdiction of Cochin Commissionerate is set aside taking into consideration the fact the license has been extended upto 2027. Appeal allowed in part.
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