September 09, 2020
Joint DGFT not empowered to review his own orders: Madras HC
[ by Legal Era News Network ]
The Madras High Court has held that the Joint Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) is not empowered to review his own orders.
The petitioner who is an Export Promotion and Capital Goods (EPCG) license holder had imported various capital goods on a concessional rate of 5% of customs duty. The goods were utilized by the petitioner for the manufacture of various export items. After fulfillment of the export obligation, the petitioner applied for the redemption of the EPCG license. The Joint DGFT (Respondent authority) had granted the Export Obligation Discharge Certificate (EOD) on various dates for each of the eight applications.
After about 10 years of issuing the EOD certificate, the impugned notices have been sent, which sought to regularise the case and recover the customs duty along with interest. The petitioner challenged the impugned notices with the Madras High Court.
The petitioner submitted that the impugned notices have been issued after about 10 years from the issuance of the EOD Certificate which is contrary to the limitation prescribed under the proviso to Section 16 of the Act, which prescribes a period of two years for such a power to review.
The Single Judge bench of Justice M.S. Ramesh quashed the notices issued by the Joint DGFT and said that as and when the Joint DGFT had issued the EPCG license and the Export Obligation Discharge Certificate, he becomes “functus officio” and if at all, such an order is to be reviewed, the same can be done only by the Director-General, as provided under Section 16 of the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act, 1992 (FTDR Act).
The Court observed that the Joint DGFT has no jurisdiction to review his own order, in the absence of any explicit provision under the statute. Further, even as per the statute, the Director-General of Foreign Trade is only empowered to review the orders made by the Joint DGFT under section 16 of the FTDR Act and as such, the impugned notices by the Joint DGFT is without any authority of law.
The court while commenting on the limitation period of the notices said that the notices are after a long delay between 8 to 10 years and there is absolutely no explanation for this inordinate delay in the proposal to review the order. The court therefore quashed the impugned notices.
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