Filing of Import Manifest before Arrival of the vessel or aircraft - Penalty to be imposed for non- compliance
An important amendment to the Customs Act made by Finance Act 2003 effective from 14 – 5- 2003 went almost un- noticed. As per the old Section 30, the person in charge was required to file an import manifest/report within twenty four hours after arrival in a customs station in the case of vessels and within twelve hours in the case of aircraft or vehicle. In the case of vessel or aircraft this could be filed even before the arrival. There was no penal provision for contravening this section and any violation had to be dealt with under Section 117 which provided for a maximum penalty of ten thousand rupees for contraventions not covered in the other sections.
Section 30 was amended by Finance Act 2003 to provide for
1. Filing of the manifest by any other person specified by the Government by notification
2. Mandatory filing of manifest before the arrival of the vessel or aircraft and within twelve hours after arrival in the case of vehicles.
3. A penalty up to fifty thousand rupees for contravention.
The Board was not really ready to implement this and it was postponed till May 2004. Obviously even now the Import manifests are not filed before arrival of the vessel and so the Board wants penalty should invariably be administered in cases of failure to file the IGM in advance. The Board letter also suggests an adjudication without a written Show Cause Notice and reply. – Board’s F.No.-CusIV dated 31.12.2004.