CHANDIGARH: In an order with wide ramifications, the Punjab and Haryana high court has held that a company importing goods cannot be burdened with the demurrage and detention charges at the ports for an inordinate period due to the fault of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) or the Customs department authorities.
"Once it is found that detention of goods for inordinate period was not on account of any fault on the part of the petitioner, he is not liable to be burdened with that cost. It is only the DRI and customs, who should bear the cost, demanded by the shipping line," observed the court. The court also imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 each to be paid by the department, which can be recovered from the officials guilty for the delay.
HC also observed that country imports goods worth about $33 billion annually and in large number of cases, the issue arises regarding alleged mis-declaration of the goods in the bills of entry, but the infrastructure in the form of laboratories or otherwise available with the department was lacking.
"That needs to be upgraded immediately to avoid any delay in clearance of goods or giving undue benefit to the unscrupulous importers on account of delay in the process," held the HC in its Friday judgment released on Saturday . A division bench compri sing Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Harinder Singh Sidhu passed these orders while allowing a petition filed by Shri Lakshmi Steels.
The petitioner company had imported defectivesecondary cold rolled sheetscoils of varied thickness from South Korea with vide commercial invoice dated October 27, 2015.
Preferential certificate of origin was also available which entitled the petitioner to duty free import. It was in terms of Korea-India comprehensive Partnership Agreement.
On December 14, 2015, DRI made a request to the Customs commissioner (import), Mumbai, for putting on hold the consignment of the petitioner as well as five other importers based at Ludhiana. The letter said that even in future, no import consignments of the firm be released without NOC from DRI. As the goods imported by the petitioner were not prohibited goods, request was made for provisional release thereof.
Several requests were made to DRI and customs as the goods were incurring demurrage and detention charges.Demurrage is a charge payab le to the owner of a chartered ship on failure to load or discharge the ship within the time agreed. It was requested that import consignments of Ludhiana based importers be examined 100% with the assistance of local Chartered Engineer pending custom clearance. The report of examination be prepared and copy be forwarded to DRI. It was also requested that photographs of the import consignments be taken. If the goods imported appeared to be offending the government regulations, the same be dealt with under relevant statute.
When nothing was done, the petitioner approached the HC for release of consignment. The petitioner company argued it was the illegal action of customs and DRI, Ludhiana on account of which goods remained in their custody. Destuffing was not offered and allowed immediately, as a result of which detention and demurrage charges have accumulated, which are much more than even the value of the goods.
Allowing their petition, bench directed to release the goods. "The port trust cannot charge any demurrage in view of Regulation 6(l) of the 2009 Regulations, customs having issued the detention certificate. The detention charges demanded by the shipping line shall be borne by DRI and or the Customs. However, they shall be entitled to get the same waived off or reduce from the shipping line," held the court.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com