Full Judgment
2. The appeal memorandum shows that the impugned order was received by the jurisdictional Commissioner on 1.11.95. The appeal was filed on 8.3.96. The Registry communicated to the appellant Commissioner vide letter dated 9.12.99 that an application for condonation of delay was required to be filed. So far there is no reaction to this communication. In the aforesaid letter, the respondents claimed that on this ground alone the appeal from the Revenue may be dismissed.
3. Even otherwise, I have gone to the case records. For failure to show proof of export, the demand was confirmed on the assessee and penalty was imposed. This order was set aside by the Collector (appeals) on the observation that the assessee had produced proof of export. In the denovo adjudication, the demand was dropped but the penalty of Rs. 12500/- was maintained. The Commissioner (appeals) in the impugned order held that when the authorities were satisfied as to the fact of export, imposition of penalty on the appellants was inconsistent. On his having set aside the orders of penalty, the Revenue have filed the present appeal. The ground of appeal is that the errant assessee should be dealt with firmly and orders such as are made in the present case would give uncontrolled freedom to the exporters. It is also claimed that such orders would be bad precedent creating legal indiscipline.
4. I feel this claim in the appeal memorandum is unfounded. The proper action to the Appellate Authority would be to deal with the case on merits involved and previous judgment. Where a judgment is biased it would not become precedent and certainly would not give freedom to the exporters. The imposition of penalty is an action parallel to the confirmation of duty and where the duty is not demanded on a certain set of circumstances, there would be little justification for maintaining penalty.
5. On both the grounds, I find that the appeal does not succeed and is dismissed.