Customs ADC wins Defamation case against noted journalists
03.07.2014
Thursday
THE Complainant Mr. Ajay Ganesh Ubale was functioning as Addl. Commissioner of Central Excise and was repatriated in the Year-2000 from the office of Zonal Director of Narcotics Control Bureau. The complainant hails from an eminent and respectable family out of which many members have served in Senior Government posts. His wife is a practicing Doctor and his father and father-in-law retired as an Inspector General of Police of Maharashtra. His brother is an IAS Officer serving as Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra. The complainant passed the civil service examination till 1988 and was selected to the Indian Custom and Central Excise Service (Group A). The Revenue Secretary, Govt. of India commended his work and due to his outstanding service record, he was posted as Zonal Director of Mumbai Unit of NCB and under his Directorship surpassed its previous performance in the Year-2000.
The Hindustan Times Company is the owner of Hindustan Times, a national daily newspaper published from New Delhi. The said newspaper has a fairly large circulation in Mumbai having bureau office in Mumbai. The accused are:
1] Shobhana Bhartia, Vice-Chairperson and Editorial Director,
2] Vir Sanghvi, Editorial Director,
3] Arun Roy Choudhary, Resident Editor,
4] Sudhi Ranjan Sen, Author and News Reporter,
5] Kumkum Chadda, Sub-Editor,
6] Rakesh Sharma, Publisher and Printer
of the Hindustan Times.
The complaint is that the accused published a defamatory article, "Mumbai NCB Chief under CBI Scanner". The newspaper reported that:
i] "This time, the Mumbai Chief of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Ajay G. Ubale, a Customs Officer on deputation to NCB, is being investigated by the CBI and the Finance Ministry for alleged extortion and trying to frame an individual for drug trafficking."
ii] "NCB investigators from Mumbai, in a report to the Finance Ministry, confirmed that Ubale tried to extort and book an innocent person."
iii] "Dubey filed a complaint with the CBI alleging that the Zonal Deputy Director had demanded Rs. 5 lakh. The agency searched Ubale's office and seized some documents."
The complainant says that these three statements are totally false and accused have knowledge about the same.
The complainant contacted the Mumbai representative and accused Nos. 3 to 5 at New Delhi office making numerous calls. In the afternoon of 04/12/2001, the complainant contacted New Delhi office and spoke to accused Nos. 3 to 5 and informed them about correct facts. The accused No.5 asked the complainant to send his version by E-mail and the complainant did the same. He has also told accused No.5 that Mumbai representative was apprised of true and entire picture. However, the accused did not publish it and nor retracted the false and defamatory articles.
The Court after a detailed analysis of the evidence and law held that the three statements contained imputations defamatory to the complainant.
The Court acquitted accused No.1 Shobhana Bhartia and accused No.5 Kumkum Chhadda.
The accused No.2 Vir Sanghvi, accused No. 3 Arun Roy Choudhary, accused No. 4 Sudhi Ranjan Sen and accused No.6 Rakesh Sharma were convicted of the offence punishable U/Sec.- 500 r/w. 34 of the Indian Penal Code vide section 255 (2) of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 and sentenced to suffer Simple Imprisonment for the period of 1 month each and also to pay a fine of Rs. 3000/- each in default to suffer S.I. for a period of 10 days each. They were awarded similar sentences under different sections, but the substantive sentences awarded to the accused on all the counts shall run concurrently.
It is learnt that the convicted journalists have taken bail. And the matter will move to the next stage of appeal.
The perseverance and courage of this IRS officer who took on the might of giants like CBI and the powerful media is amazing as he was engaged in litigation in CAT, CIC and courts. This particular case took nearly ten years to be decided at a Metropolitan Court level.
Please see Judgement of the COURT OF THE METROPOLITAN MAGISTRATE, 16th Court, Mumbai, Dated: June 17 2014.
Quarterly Return for Registered importers - e-filing in ACES
THE quarterly return for the First Stage Dealer/ Second Stage Dealer/ Registered Importer for the period April-June, 2014 is required to be filed on or before 15th July 2014.
Importers who are registered with Central Excise for issuing cenvatable invoices can e-file their quarterly returns now using the offline or online versions available in ACES.
The offline version can be downloaded from http://acesdownload.nic.in/ or from the Download link of the ACES website (http://www.aces.gov.in/).
More details can be had from FAQ Page for Central Excise Returns under Help>Frequently Asked Questions.
FTP - Onions - Minimum Export Price again enhanced
IN September 2013, the Minimum Export Price stipulated for onions was 1150 USD, which was reduced to 150 USD in December 2013. By Notification No. 73 dated 12.03.2014, the export policy for onions was made FREE.
It was only a fortnight ago that the minimum export price (MEP) of USD 300 per MT was fixed on the export of onions by notification 82/(RE-2013)/2009-2014 dated 17.06.2014.
The Inter-Ministerial Committee in their meeting held on 30th June, 2014, observed that the wholesale and retail prices of onion are going up in producing and consuming mandis and despite MEP at USD 300 PMT there is no appreciable decline in the exports of onion.
Keeping in view of rising retail and wholesale prices and delayed monsoon, the Committee unanimously decided to fix the MEP at USD 500 per MT FOB which translates to Rs.30.00 per kg. with a view to arrest domestic price rise and augment domestic supply.
Onions are virtually driving the Government to tears and India's hike of MEP for onions is big news in Bangladesh and even BBC reported it.
DGFT Notification No. 86(RE-2013)/2009-2014, Dated: July 02, 2014
The Halwa Ceremony - will it sweeten Budget?
THE famous Halwa ceremony which marks the commencement of printing process of Budget documents was held in North Block on Tuesday evening.
The ceremony was attended by Finance Minister Jaitley, MoS Nirmala Sitharaman, all the Secretaries in the Finance Ministry - there are four of them - Finance, Expenditure, Revenue and Financial Services. The Chairpersons of both the Boards and other senior officers of the Ministry had a taste of the Halwa. The TARC had recommended abolition of the post of Revenue Secretary and making the Chairmen of the two Boards independent. But look at the picture - there are four secretaries of the ministry near the Halwa and where are the Chairmen of the Boards? Do we abolish all these Secretaries?
After the Halwa ceremony, more than 100 officers of the ministry are sent underground in the basement where they remain cut off from the rest of the world till the Finance Minister presents his budget in Parliament.
There was a tradition long ago when the Finance Secretary's wife could not go shopping before the budget - the prices of anything she buys would go up.
But do we need to maintain such top secrecy for the Budget? Everybody knows about the financial health of the country - the only immediate impact is increase in customs and excise duties - rest of the Budget is effective only after its enactment. Even the Customs and Excise duties can be increased by the Government anytime by notifications. What, then is the sanctity of so much secrecy? Are we just continuing with an illogical tradition? We got out of the hangover of presenting the budget at 5pm, can't we get rid of this secrecy too? Or is that meant for the BULLS and BEARS to run through the China shop?
Jurisprudentiol - Friday's cases
Service Tax
BAS - Applicants are acting as an agent on behalf of cane growing farmers for providing service to sugar factory - activity undertaken by commission agent in relation to sale and purchase of agricultural produce is exempted as per Notification no. 13/03-ST - prima facie case in favour - pre deposit waived and stay granted: CESTAT
IT is contended by the applicant that they are engaged in the activity of cutting, harvesting and transportation of sugar cane. Earlier, a show cause notice was issued to the appellant on the ground that the applicants were providing Manpower Supply Agency service and the Tribunal in their own case had held that the activity undertaken by the applicant is not classifiable under manpower supply service and more appropriately covered under Business Auxiliary Service.
It is further submitted that the present demand is in respect of the amount received from the sugar factory over and above the amounts which they received in respect of cutting, harvesting and transportation of sugarcane; that it is the contention of the Revenue that applicant had procured the goods or services which are input for the client i.e. sugar factory; they are acting as intermediary or agent, and, therefore, the said services are classifiable as Business Auxiliary Service.
Income Tax
Whether initiation of reassessment proceedings cannot be faulted with if there is evidence indicating less than full and true disclosure of facts during normal assessment - YES: HC
THE assessee company had filed its return declaring total income as Rs.52.96 crores. During assessment, AO determined the assessee's income at Rs.53.12 crores. Later on, a notice u/s 148 was issued to the assessee and the reasons for reopening the assessment beyond the end of four years from the relevant assessment year furnished to the assessee against which the assessee had filed its objections and in particular submitted that the notice was without jurisdiction as there was no reason to believe that the income chargeable to tax had escaped assessment nor there was any failure to fully and truly disclose the material facts necessary for assessment.
The issue is - Whether initiation of reassessment proceedings cannot be faulted with if there is evidence indicating less than full and true disclosure of facts during normal assessment. And the answer goes against the assessee.
Central Excise
CENVAT - Appellant taking credit on inputs purchased by job workers without receiving goods in their premises was provided by erstwhile CER, 1944 - similar provision is implied from rule 4(5)(a) inasmuch as if final products are allowed to be cleared from job worker's premises u/r 4(6) of CCR, 2004 it implies that job worker could procure part of raw materials which are required for completion of manufacturing process: CESTAT
THE appellants are manufacturers of Hydraulic Pumps, Cylinders, Valves and Power units. They procured critical components such as, hydraulic pumps, heat exchanger, filters and filter elements, electric motor, etc. and undertook partial processing and then these components, either as such or after being processed were sent to various job workers for fabrication of structure and assembly as per the drawings and designs provided by the appellants. The job workers also sometimes procured components as such pipes, fittings, etc. After the fabrication work was completed, the goods were inspected and tested by the appellants and thereafter, despatched from the job worker's premises to the various buyers of the goods on payment of appropriate excise duty.
See our Columns Tomorrow for the judgements
Until Tomorrow with more DDT
Have a nice day
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