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Judgment
Justice T.R. Ramachandran Nair
The Writ Petition is filed by the petitioner seeking for the following relief:
To issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direction directing respondents 1 and 2 to initiate proceedings against the petitioner, if they so desire, within a shortest possible time or issue a no objection to the petitioner to comply with the directions of the Debt Recovery Tribunal, as contained in Exhibit P2.
The petitioner is a Company, which is engaged in the business of manufacturing various types of carpets, mats and mattings and exporting Coir and Coir related products. The petitioner had imported certain machine parts from Czech Republic and port of import was Cochin Port. It appears that certain proceedings were taken thereafter by the Customs. The petitioner points out that there is undue delay on the part of respondents 1 and 2 in initiating or concluding the proceedings against the petitioner, which is now in a stalemate. It is in these circumstances that this Writ Petition has been filed.
Respondents have filed a statement as well as an additional statement. Going by the averments in the statement, it is seen that the Unit has stopped functioning from 2008. Various other aspects have also been pointed out and finally it is stated that the demand of customs duty is to the tune of Rs. 1,37,56,615/- on the imported capital goods and raw material and Central Excise duty is Rs. 33,29,540/- on the indigenously purchased capital goods and finished goods lying in the ware house. The learned Standing Counsel for the respondents submitted that already a notice dated 9.10.2012 has been issued to the petitioner and the learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that so far the petitioner has not received the same. It is the contention of the learned Standing Counsel for the Department that since a notice has been issued, the Writ Petition has become infructuous and no further reliefs are called for in the Writ Petition.
The learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the Customs Department is claiming first charge; but according to the petitioner under the SARFAESI Act, Bank is having first charge. I am not going into the details of the said contentions, since none of those issues have been raised for consideration herein and all those contentions are left open. The Writ Petition is accordingly closed.