COURT: | Bombay High Court |
CORAM: | Milind N. Jadhav J, Ujjal Bhuyan J |
SECTION(S): | Customs Act |
GENRE: | Domestic Tax |
CATCH WORDS: | alternate remedy, Customs Duty, principles of natural justice |
COUNSEL: | J. B. Mishra, Pradeep S. Jetly, Prithviraj Choudhari |
DATE: | March 25, 2021 (Date of pronouncement) |
DATE: | March 27, 2021 (Date of publication) |
AY: | - |
FILE: | Click here to view full post with file download link |
CITATION: | |
Customs Act: It is a settled proposition that when a law requires a thing to be done in a particular manner, it has to be done in the prescribed manner and proceeding in any other manner is necessarily forbidden. An order is vitiated if it is passed in violation of the principles of natural justice. Where there is a breach of principles of natural justice, existence of an alternate remedy of appeal would be no bar to exercise of jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India |
In the light of the discussions made above, we are of the unhesitant view that the impugned order in original is clearly unsustainable in law being in violation of the principles of natural justice as well as the statutory provisions as alluded to hereinabove. In the circumstances, relegating the petitioner to the forum of appeal does not arise. Consequently, we set aside the impugned order in original dated 23.09.2020 and direct that the proper officer may proceed with the matter afresh, if he is so inclined, by following the mandate of section 124 of the Customs Act and Rule 12 of the Customs Valuation (Determination of Value of Imported Goods) Rules, 2007. We further direct that respondent No.2 shall assign the hearing to a proper officer other than respondent No.3, who had passed the impugned order in original
Recent Comments