In a recent judgment the Delhi High Court observed that the Commissioner should issue a notice within ninety days under the Customs Brokers Licensing Regulations, 2013 (CBLR) on receipt of offence report.
The respondent is a customs broker and at the material time was holding the CB License, which was valid up to 01.09.2026. The said license was issued under Regulation 7 of the CBLR. 4.2 It is alleged that certain goods, which were stored in custom bonded warehouses, were diverted to the domestic market without payment of customs duty. Further, forged and fabricated documents were prepared to show re-export of the warehoused goods.
The appellant (Revenue) filed the present appeal under Section 130 of the Customs Act, 1962 impugning an order passed by the Customs Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT), New Delhi. The respondent (M/s R.P. Cargo Handling Services) had filed the aforementioned appeal before the Tribunal impugning the order passed by the Commissioner of Customs (Airport & General).
The Tribunal held that the notice under Regulation 20(1) of the CBLR was required to be received by the customs broker, against whom action under the CBLR is proposed, within a period of ninety days of the offence report. Since, in the present case, the notice was received by the respondent on 28.08.2018, it was beyond the period of ninety days from the receipt of the offence report dated 10.05.2018 that was received by the Commissioner on 18.05.2018.
The question that falls for consideration of the Court is whether the learned Tribunal was correct in holding that a show cause notice under Regulation 20 of the Customs Brokers Licensing Regulations, 2013 (CBLR) is required to be received by the customs broker within a period of ninety days of the receipt of the offence report and it is not sufficient that the notice is sent within the said period of ninety days.
The Bench of Justices Vibhu Bakhru and Amit Mahajan observed that “There is a distinction between issuance of notice and service of notice and the words ‘issue’ and ‘serve’ are not synonymous. The said words may be construed as interchangeable only if the context of the statute makes it necessary to do so.”
The Court concluded by noting that “The Tribunal has erred in holding that the Commissioner was required to serve a notice to the respondent within a period of ninety days from the date of receipt of the offence report. The Commissioner was required to issue a notice within the period of ninety days and there is no dispute that it had done so.”
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