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By Vijay Kumar

Customs

offence case – when prosecution is quashed, on same set of facts, accused cannot be punished in Departmental adjudication – Revenue appeal dismissed : Madras HC

It is an admitted case that there is no variance in the charges levelled and the acquisition made against the first respondent herein before the Customs Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal, which was the subject matter of the Criminal Revision before this Court in which the first respondent was discharged. The basic material which formed the basis for levelling the charges against the first respondent herein, before this Court in the criminal proceedings and before the Tribunal are verbatim same, neither there is a deletion nor addition in it. In those factual circumstances of the case, the Tribunal allowed the appeal by stating that on the very same charges levelled against the first respondent, this Court, in the Criminal Revision, discharged him from all the charges and hence, the first respondent cannot be thrust with penalty in a sum of Rs.5,00,000/-, as there was no material to connect him with the alleged charges.

When the attempt of the appellant to establish the charges levelled against the first respondent has failed and this Court has also categorically viewed that there was absolutely no material adduced by the appellant to connect the first respondent in the alleged smuggling activities, we are of the view that the Tribunal is correct in allowing the appeal filed by the first respondent.

And there is no question of law, much less substantial question of law arising to admit this appeal. Accordingly, this Civil Miscellaneous Appeal is dismissed. There will be no order as to costs.

Central Excise

Finished goods damaged in floods but later reconditioned and cleared on duty payment – by lodging a claim with insurance and recovering damages assessee has not violated any Excise Rules – Finding a Prima facie case, Tribunal waives pre-deposit of penalty

26th July 2005 spelt disaster for Mumbaikars. Unprecedented rains on that day caused immense loss of lives and property. Ultimately, instead of blaming the benevolent Rain gods & the Municipal Corporation for not taking enough measures to prevent water logging at low lying areas in and around Mumbai, the ones held responsible were the mushrooming slums, plastic bags & the Mithi river which had not done its duty of carrying the excess rain water into the sea!

Nothing has changed except some bombastic statements by the ruling parties and some superficial disaster management plans that by now are conveniently relegated to history.

In all this, there were some manufacturers who lost everything. It will be surprising to hear that even today there are some duty remission applications pending before the competent Central Excise authorities.

Naturally pending remission applications should send jitters to the jurisdictional range Superintendent. But he is learned man! Noticing that the remission applications were pending, he had issued demand notice on the quantity of goods that were lost/destroyed by alleging that the goods were clandestinely removed by the assessee – great idea that for safeguarding government revenue!

Income Tax

Can RWAs be termed as charitable u/s 2(15)? - Are they entitled to registration u/s 12A? - ITAT holds they are entitled to exemption under Income Tax Act

THE issue before the Tribunal was : Can Resident Welfare Associations (RWA) also be said to be formed for charitable purposes within the scope of Sec.2(15) and entitled to registration u/s 12-A for the purpose of claiming exemption under the Act? Though it undoubtedly depends on the objects of the association but even if the objects are charitable, can it be termed as a charitable institution keeping in mind the fact that such RWAs usually cater to a small select community living within a locality. The Tribunal answered the questions in the affirmative in favour of the association and declared it to be a charitable institution entitled to registration u/s 12-A holding that it caters to a section of the public which is sufficient to qualify the objects to be of general public utility as long as it does not cater for personal benefits of a particular individual.