No time limit for issue of Show Cause Notice???
THE Board Circular also states, there is no time limit provided for issue of Show Cause Notice under Section 124 and that the proceedings of confiscation of goods and or imposition of penalty on the offender do not attract any time limit.
What does it mean? Can they give a Show Cause Notice after 50 years? How long is one to be under the threat of a notice from Customs? Based on this view, can they issue notices now in cases where they had not issued Show Cause Notices earlier assuming they could not?
R K Laxman once had a brush with the Bombay Customs when they detained a book imported by him. About a year after the incident, he got a letter from the Assistant Collector that he had taken a lenient view and decided to let off Laxman.
Laxman wrote in Idle Hours that he was surprised that he did not even know that he was under Customs investigation. He wondered whether Customs sleuths were peeping into his bedroom to investigate his reading habits. His point was that even without your knowing it, you could be an accused or an offender until let off by a benign Assistant Collector.
Can they issue a Show Cause Notice to Laxman now?