2018 (10) TMI 753 – CESTAT NEW DELHI – TMI – Principles of Natural Justice – no proper opportunity of hearing granted – case of appellant is that appearance could not be made for personal hearing as all the documents were in the possession of Department – Held that:- It is evident that the adjudicating authority has granted three opportunities of personal hearing in a row i.e 06.06.2017, 07.06.2017 and 08.06.2018, which, prima facie, appears to be not logical and is a complete violation of settled proposition of law settled by this Tribunal in the case of Deepak Gupta vs CCE, Kolkata [2015 (11) TMI 1459 – CESTAT KOLKATA], where it was held that Granting three consecutive days of hearing i.e. at short intervals of a week or so cannot be considered as the reasonable opportunity afforded to the appellant before deciding the case.
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Matter to the original authority with a direction to decide the matter de novo by affording reasonable opportunity of hearing to the Appellants to defend
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and a Panchnama was drawn on the spot. It was also alleged that during the search some excess amount of raw material to the tune of 267.126 MT and 30.045 MT of the finished goods were found for which a separate show cause notice was issued on 12.03.2014 by DGCEI. The said show cause notice culminated into passing of the impugned order. Being aggrieved, the Appellants have filed the present appeal. 3. With this background, we have heard Shri Prabhat Kumar, learned counsel for the Appellants and Shri S.K. Bansal, learned DR for the Revenue. 4. The learned counsel for the Appellants, at the very outset, submitted that while passing the impugned order no proper opportunity of hearing was granted by the authorities below which amounts to violation of principle of natural justice. He fairly submitted that, though three opportunities were given to the Appellants vide letter dated 18.05.2017 for personal hearing fixed for 06.06.2017, 07.06.2017 and 08.06.2017 in a row, but since all the docum
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a row i.e 06.06.2017, 07.06.2017 and 08.06.2018, which, prima facie, appears to be not logical and is a complete violation of settled proposition of law settled by this Tribunal in the case of Deepak Gupta vs CCE, Kolkata, 2016 (343) ELT 625 (Tri-Kol), wherein it was held that : 5.4 It is evident from the above provisions of Customs Act, 1962 that a reasonable opportunity is to be provided to a person before imposing any penalty on him. In this regard we are of the opinion that granting three consecutive days of hearing, i.e., at short-intervals of a week or so cannot be considered as the reasonable opportunity afforded to the appellant before deciding the case. Moreover neither the order of the ld. Commissioner nor any evidence is produced by the Revenue showing that the communication of the hearing on 14-1-2013 was duly served to the appellant. In these circumstances we arrive on the conclusion that a reasonable opportunity of hearing was not provided to the appellant before imposing
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