ORDER
Jyoti Balasundaram, Vice-President
1. Vide the impugned order, the Commissioner of Customs (P), Mumbai has confirmed the duty demand of Rs, 12,72,333/- under the proviso to Section 28(1) of the Customs Act against the appellants herein, confiscated 2 consignments of dyes with option extended to the appellants to redeem the same on payment of fine of Rs. One lakh and imposed penalty of Rs. 1.50 lakhs upon them under the provisions of Section 112(b)(i) & (ii) of the Act. The demand has been confirmed on the ground that the appellants who are carpet manufacturers/exporters, Mirzapur, Varanasi, were selling Import Export Pass Books issued under DEEC Scheme in the local Bombay market in violation of the Import Trade Control Restriction imposed on such sale and in violation of the provisions of the Customs Act.
2. We have heard both sides. It is the submission of the appellant that the goods were not disposed of by them in Mumbai after import, but transported to their factory in UP and utilised in the manufacture of final products viz. carpets. In support of this submission, they had relied upon Form 31 showing payment of Sales Tax for entry of the goods into UP, transport receipts showing movements of the goods to their factory in UP etc. It is their further submission that the documents produced by them were got verified by the officers in Marine & Preventive Wing as seen from Para 12 of the impugned order and their report shows that Sales Tax Authorities had confirmed issue of Form 31 to the appellants and that they had paid sales tax the goods covered thereunder and the report further confirmed that the transport receipts issued by the transporters were genuine. However, the Commissioner has not furnished them a copy of the verification carried out by the officers and he has held that the verification was in respect of other consignments and that the verification does not relate to the consignment of which the duty demand has been raised. We find it difficult to believe that when documents are furnished to support a particular stand and it is in the context of those documents verification has been directed to be carried out by the officers of the Marine & Preventive Wing, they would not have carried out any verification of those consignments and carried out verification only on other than those consignments. Since the verification report referred to Para 12 of the impugned order has not been furnished to the appellants herein, their contention that the principles of natural justice has been contravened, has force. In these circumstances, we set aside the impugned order and remand the case to the juris-dictional Commissioner for de novo adjudication after supplying copy of the verification report to the appellants and affording a reasonable opportunity of being heard in their defence before passing fresh orders. The fresh adjudication is to be carried out within a period of three months from the date of receipt of this order.
3. In the result, the impugned order is set aside and the appeal allowed by way of remand.