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2002 (1) TMI 128

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..... option to the appellants to redeem the same on payment of redemption fine of Rs. 10.00 lakhs (Rupees ten lakhs). Penalty of Rs. 2,93,518.00 (Rupees two lakhs ninety-three thousand five hundred and eighteen) has been imposed upon the importer under the provisions of Section 112(a) of the Customs Act, 1962. The said Order of the Commissioner is impugned before us. Shri Sudhir Mehta, learned Advocate appearing for the appellant-company submits that they purchased two consignments of Re-conditioned Components of Photocopier from M/s. Ross International Inc., U.S.A., under the cover of two invoices bearing Nos. 4466, dated 31-12-1998 and 4466A, dated 30-12-98. The value of the goods in the said invoices was shown as US $16530.30 and US $7806.30 .....

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..... as US $21,919.50 and US $80,355.50 as also a Collection Order on M/s. Habib American Bank. He submits that the same are unsigned and unauthenticated documents and cannot be made the basis for enhancing the assessable value of the goods in question. The Export Declaration made by the overseas supplier cannot lead, ipso facto, to the conclusion that the price shown in that declaration has been remitted by the appellants to their foreign supplier, especially when such documents are unsigned and are only photocopies. As regards the Collection Order of the said Bank, he vehemently contends that the same does not belong to the appellant-company. He assails the integrity of the Investigating Officers by submitting that they have only produced hal .....

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..... raised by the supplier's and as per the export declaration made by him, are differing. He, further, submits that even if the Remittance made by M/s. Razorbill Ltd. of U.K. is taken into consideration, the total value differs from the purported invoices as also from the export declaration. As such, the declarations by the foreign supplier and the invoices raised by him, are not correlating and do not have any nexus with the invoices submitted by the appellant-company to the Customs Authorities, which should only be taken as correct invoices. In support of his above submissions, Shri Mehta relies upon the Hon'ble Supreme Court's decision in the case of Collector of Customs, Bombay v. East Punjab Traders reported in 1997 (89) E.L.T. 11 (S.C.) .....

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..... of Mr. Mirchandani recorded by the U.S. Customs to the effect that there was under-valuation of the goods in question. 4.2. Shri Mehta, further, argues that the appellant-company had produced on record a number of evidences showing the contemporaneous imports. The adjudicating authority has not considered the said evidences produced by the appellant-company by observing that when there is a direct evidence of undervaluation, the contemporaneous import value is not to be adopted. He submits that the Customs should have accepted the transaction value of the goods and in case of any doubt, they should have considered the value of the contemporaneous imports. In the absence of any doubt about the contemporaneous import value, the adjud .....

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..... . However, we find that all these documents photocopies of which have been produced before us, are unsigned documents. As rightly argued by the learned Advocate that the photocopies of such unsigned documents cannot be held to be proper evidence, as laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of East Punjab Traders (supra). The authenticity of the photocopies of the documents is suspected when neither the originals have been produced nor the signatures of the officers making enquiries are appearing on the photocopies of original. We also note that the appellants have strongly contested that Revenue had given only the counterfoils of the U.K. Bank Remittance Order with their name written in hand. However, when the full Remittance Orde .....

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..... the values is the correct value, when all the three even in accordance with the evidences produced by the Customs, differed considerably. As such, we are constrained to observe that the evidences produced by the Revenue are liable to be rejected, in view of the observations made by us in the preceding paragraphs. 8. We, further, note that the appellants have produced on record the evidences showing importation of the contemporaneous imports at the same value at which the appellants had imported the goods. Such evidence produced by the appellant-company has been dismissed by the adjudicating authority by observing that. When the other concrete evidences are available on record, there is no scope to look into the other contemporaneou .....

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