TMI Blog1990 (9) TMI 94X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... es and spares (excluding the items covered by Appendix 5) which can be imported under Open General Licence by Actual Users (Industrial) under the Import-Export Policy, 1982-83. This facility will also be available to Export Houses and Trading Houses holding REP licences which were endorsed during 1981-82 for import of OGL items." Appendix IV contained item 43 which was worded thus:- "Oxytetracycline." There are certain other entries in Appendix IV which have to be set out to establish the contrast between them and entry 43. These were :- "6. Aniline/Aniline oil and salts thereof. 18. Cyclamic acid and its salts. 32. Hydrazine Hydrate/sulphate. 36. Methapyrilene and its salt. 54. Propranolol hydrochloride." The Central Gove ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... y 1982 executed a letter of authority in favour of the petitioners as permitted by para 38 of the Hand Book of Import and Export Procedure for the year 1981-82. The holder of the letter of authority thus become an agent of the licence holder for the purpose of placement of orders for goods to be imported and to do all acts incidental thereto. The Petitioner is a firm registered under the Partnership Act and purporting to exercise its rights under the L/A aforementioned, placed an order with a concern of Yugoslavia for purchase of 2000 kgs. of Oxytetracycline Hydrochloride BP/USP/IP. The order was placed through the agents of the Yugoslavian concern and the said agents are said to have accepted the order on the very day on which it was place ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... which could be found payable in lieu of the confiscation from the date of the order imposing such a fine. Having regard to the clearance already having taken place, all that remains to be decided is to rule upon the validity of the importation and the entitlement of the petitioner to a detention certificate as claimed in prayer (b) of the petition. 3. Respondents in their affidavit-in-reply contend that the order for import was placed not in the month of April 1982 but later. In fact the same was placed after the PN had become known. To escape the application of the PN the petitioner in collusion with certain Bank officers had fabricated documents to give the impression of the order having been placed in the first or second week of April ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the importability of sheets by the Public Notice prescribing that the sheets to be imported must be of "prime quality". It was observed that the change could not apply to sheets imported under licences issued earlier and in exercise of a statutory power. The Supreme Court approved a decision of an Officer who heard the Revision Application on behalf of the Central Government in these words :- "The Officer who heard the revision applications on behalf of the Central Government was of the view, and rightly, that the Public Notice.........dated December 6,1962, of the Iron and Steel Controller had no retrospective operation and the condition of "prime quality" could not be applied to the sheets imported under the licences issued before that ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ief Controller has the authority to issue Trade or Public Notices and the object of such notices is to make known the policy to the importers and exporters. The publication of notices for the information of the general public is something in the nature of an exercise in public relations without any statutory consequences flowing therefrom. On the other hand, notifications in exercise of statutory powers have consequences in law affecting the rights and obligations of citizens. Therefore, irrespective of the suspicion said to surround the date of placement of the order by the petitioner and the finalisation of the L/C, the legal right of the petitioner to import the commodity under the Import Licence was not affected. The importation was val ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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