Special Court Acquits 7 Customs Officials in ₹88 Lakh Duty Evasion Case After 16 Years | Representational Image
Mumbai: Sixteen years after the CBI lodged a case against customs officials and shipping companies for duty evasion to the tune of Rs 88 lakh, a special court on Friday acquitted seven accused, saying they were not part of the conspiracy. The mastermind of the scam, however, died pending trial, the court observed.
According to the CBI, Devendra Verma, 60, and Dawa Injung, 56, superintendents of customs, and Suresh Shetty, 63, customs examiner, connived with accused firms Amreen Impex, its proprietor, Sameer Sehgal, and Deepak K Joshi, partner of customs house agent (CHA) MD Shipping Agency.
The agency had claimed that they mis-declared the description, weight and value of goods to obtain Duty Entitlement Pass Book (DEPB) licences. Further, Asif Ahmed Kachhi of Amreen Impex also obtained DEPB licences fraudulently by using forged bank realisation certificates of UCO Bank, causing a wrongful loss of Rs88 lakh to the exchequer.
It was claimed that Kachhi and Sehgal had attempted to export of mis-declared goods in connivance with Gurmeet Singh Kohli and his associate Ramesh Singh.
Kohli needed an Import Export Code Certificate to fraudulently export goods under the DEPB scheme. He obtained it from the office of Joint Director General of Foreign Trade, Mumbai, and handed it over to Kohli.
On the basis of said certificate Kohli made fraudulent export of goods in the name of Amreen Impex by mis-declaring goods in the export documents, and obtained DEPB licences from the office of Joint Director General of Foreign Trade, Mumbai. However, pending the trial Kohli died.
The special court said: “Investigating officer UK More [now deceased] only collected the copies of statement of witnesses recorded by custom officer under Custom Act and filed the same in this case, though this case is not under Customs Act. Even samples of goods, CFSL record about quality and weight of goods are not seized and produced before this court by him.”
Besides, the court said Kohli, the key conspirator, had died while the senior customs officials had no knowledge about the alleged fraud.
