AP High Court stays export duty on clearances to SEZs – so does Madras High Court
About a week ago, an enlightened Netizen sent us a rather uncomplimentary mail, which read as follows,
It is appears from the words of DDT for the last one month or so, Shri Vijay Kumar (Editor of Taxindiaonline.com) appears to have feeling that no export duty is payable on the supply of steel products to SEZs by DTA units. So, let him write a detailed article on the same in his DDT immediately instead of commenting on investigating agencies or customs or central excise authorities.
We fondly cherish any mail which does not appreciate our efforts and are ever grateful to such Netizens who tell us when we don't reach up to their expectations, for they are doing us a great favour by taking time off to tell us how we are wrong.
Coming back to our SEZs and exports, we had carried quite a few detailed analytical articles on the subject that I thought it did not need further analysis in DDT.
But the issue is alive and the Revenue Department is silent and the Commerce Ministry just caved in.
So the only available remedy was to knock the doors of the judiciary and that is exactly what we did. Today as I was arguing the case before the Andhra Pradesh High Court, I was gratefully thinking of this concerned Netizen, on whose suggestion I had prepared a detailed note on the subject, which I could successfully use in the High Court.
Anyway, now the matter is sub- judice and let there be no more public debate. Let the Judiciary decide.
The position is that the AP High Court has restrained the Authorities from acting on the letter from the Director in the Commerce Ministry requiring export duty to be realised before goods are allowed into the SEZ .
We should hasten to add that we were not the first to get this stay–the Madras High Court had already granted stay to two petitioners and even the AP High Court granted stay in another case.
Needless to say this stay is applicable only to the petitioners in the respective cases. That means, the High Courts are going to be flooded with identical cases all over the country. And this is going to help only the lawyers.
As of now, we have two stay orders each from the Madras and AP High Courts–more should follow in the days to come.
Is there a way out?