Page 178 - ELT_1st July 2020_Vol 373_Part 1

88 EXCISE LAW TIMES [ Vol. 373

thority who passed the Order-in-Original, however he has taken a very lenient
view by just imposing Rs. 25,000/- penalty by way of forfeiting the security de-
posit alone and permitting the licensee to continue his business which would set
a wrong precedent that, whatever the illegality or unlawfulness or violations
committed by the Customs Broker that would be taken lightly by imposing a
mere penalty and at any cost, the licence would not be revoked. This would not
be a deterrent to such kind of violators especially who makes serious violations
causing serious set back, as the case in hand involves in attempting to smuggle
prohibited or banned goods like the “Ketamine Hydrochloride”. Therefore the
Learned Counsel would submit that, the Revenue has got every right to prefer an
appeal made against the Order-in-Original.
23. Learned Counsel for the Revenue would also rely upon a decision
of the Karnataka High Court at Bangalore in the matter of Cargomar v. Union of
India, Ministry of Finance and Others in W.P. No. 15866 of 2016.
24. Hence the Learned Counsel for the Revenue would submit that, the
appeal remedy since has not been specifically prohibited even under sub-
regulation (8) of Regulation 22, for Revenue, such a prohibition cannot be im-
posed against the Revenue, as no party to any adjudication proceedings can be
rendered remediless against the order to be passed by such adjudicating authori-
ty in case such party is aggrieved over the same. Hence the Learned Counsel
would urge that, the order of CESTAT which is impugned herein, certainly re-
quires interference, hence she prayed for such intervention.
25. We have considered the said rival submissions made by the
Learned Respective Counsels appearing for the parties and have given our anx-
ious consideration to those submissions as well as the materials placed before
this Court for our perusal.
26. Though the facts of the case in nutshell have been given in the
opening portion of this order, those factors have been given only as a narration
of the facts and therefore in respect of the merits of the case is concerned, we are
not propose to make any comment on the violation or non-violation on the part
of the respondent. However in order to justify our conclusion to be reached in
the latter part of this Judgment, certain factual aspects also to be mentioned here-
in, therefore only for that purpose, we propose to mention or refer to some of the
facts of the case.
27. We have already quoted Regulation 13, where 15 situations or obli-
gations have been enumerated, which are supposed to be scrupulously fulfilled
or followed by the Licensee.
28. If any of such obligation is violated, certainly the Licensee is liable
to be penalised, of course as has been contemplated in the Regulations itself.
29. Here in the case in hand, though initially the licence was suspend-
ed, subsequently the suspension itself was revoked and thereafter show cause
notice was issued for adjudication process. After adjudication, the licensing au-
thority who passed the final order, i.e., the Order-in-Original, has given the fol-
lowing findings against the respondent/licensee.
“16. A detailed enquiry was conducted into all the above allegations and
based on the inquiry report and the representation made by the CHA; I
would like to discuss each in detail as under :

EXCISE LAW TIMES  1st July 2020  178