Collector's Order Smacks of Cruelty
WAS it one departmental authority confirming the order of another? Not always. I came across this order passed by a CBEC Member in 1981.
The findings of the Collector were merely based on presumptions and conjectures.
In the absence of any collateral and corroborative evidence, the demand of duty and penal action against the appellants was unwarranted.
The Board is also constrained to observe that in a case of this nature built up on unsupported statements, recorded after a long period of 1 to 2 years of the removal of the goods from the factory of the manufacturers, the imposition of massive penalty of Rs. 10 Lakhs, particularly, when the alleged evasion of differential duty was only about Rs. 30,000/ shows that the powers under Rule 173Q, were not used discriminately by the Collector, and smacks of cruelty.