the Collector of Customs, Madras v. K. Ganga Setty

Judgment

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 568 of 1960. Appeal from the judgment and order dated April 6, 1956, of the Madras High Court in 0 .. S. A. No. 147 of 1953. H. N. Sanyal, Additional &licitor..General of India, l'. D. Mahajan and P. D. Menon, for the appellant. R. Ganapathy Iyer, M. S. K. 8CUJtri and M. S. Narasimhan, for the respondent. 1962. April 19. The Judgment of the Court We.8 delivered by AYYANGAR, J.-The point involved in this appeal which comes before us on a certificate of fitneBB under Art. 133 (l)(o) granted by the High Court of Madras ia a very short one and relates to the nature and extent of the jurisdiction poHe&- Md by the High Court in considering the validity . .,r- • I of an order of the Customs Authorities interpreting the provisions of the entries .in the Tariff Schedule as regards the imposition of duties.

The respondent imported from Australia a quantity of oats which was described in the indent, contract . and shipping documents as "standard feed-oats". The commodity imported consisted of oats in whole grain; The question raised related to the proper classification of the goods imported under the Import Trade Control Schedules current during the period July to December 1952 when the consignment reached India. The controversy centered round the point whether the "feed-oats" fell within item 42 or within item 32 of the Circular. Item 42 ran: "Fodder, bran and pollards-0.G.L.-Soft" i.e., this item was covered by an open general licence and so no special import licence was necessary for the import of these goods from a soft currency area, while as regards item 32 the entry ran:

"Grain, not otherwise speqi.fied, including broken grain but excluding flour- (a) oats (b) others -Ports -Nil-A.V." which meant that a licenue was necessary for the importation of the goods specified in it whfoh would be granted by the Joint Chief Controller of Imports or Exports at Calcutta and Bombay, if they were the ports of entry, and by the Deputy Chief Controller of Imports & Exports Madras iC they were to be imported· through Madras; "nil" that no quotas were specified limiting the quantity to be imported, & that actual users (A.U.). could apply for the lioonoe • J961 TA• 0.1/t<Jl•r of Cuatoms, M•dr•• K. Ganga s~tly Ayyangar J. 11181 Th. C.U,.t.rof CusC•s, MMros X.Oanp S.tl)I A_,,.., .. J. SUPREME COURT &EPORTS [1963] The respondent who carried on bueinees in fodder under the name and style of BalakriAhna Flour Mills placed an order with an Australian firm for the supply of whole grain "feed-oats" without obtaining any licence for the import.

The goods arrived in Madras on August 1, 1952 and when the respondent attempted to clear the goods, the Customs Authorities insisted on the production of a licence before he would be permitted to do so. The ABBistant Collector hold that the goods imported foll within item 32 and 8.11 admittedly the respondent held no licence from the Deputy Chief Controller of Imports & Exports, Madras covering the import, there had ooen a contravention of e. 19 of tho Sea Customs Act read with s. 3 (2) of the Import & Export Control Act, 194 7 and so proceeded to deal with tho violation under s. 167(8) of thl' Sea Customs Act. He directed the confiscation of the goods and impGsed a fine of Rs.fi,000/- in lieu of confiscation, if the respondent desired to clear the goods. An appeal filed to the Collector of Customs was rejected aorl ther~after the 1eepondent moved the High Court for the issue of a writ of mandamus under s. 45 of the Specific Relief Act.

In his affidavit in support of the application the respondent besides contending that oats in full-grain fell within the head •fodder' under item 4:!, set out earlier, because (1) he had imported them for being made available solely for feeding race-horses at Bangalore, (2) that in South India oats was not used as human foods but only as feed for horses, and (3) that in any event1 he had been misled by an answer that he reeeiveci from tho Deputy Chief Controller of Importa, Madras of whom he had made an enquiry as to whether feed-oats could he imported under an open general licence under serial No. 42 and had received an aff'mnative answer The lea.med 2 S.C.R. ~ Single Judge who heard the application dismissed it on the ground that the order of the Customs Authorities classifying uncrushed feeds-oats as grain and not as fodder could not be said to be either perverse or malafide and that consequently the Court could not interfere with the decision of the autho. rities.

An appeal was perferred therefrom to a Division Bench and the learned Judged allowed the appeal and iBBued a direction prohibiting the ~· Collector and his subordinates from collecting or · taking . steps to recover the fines and ptnalties imposed on the respom'imt. It is the correctness of this order of the Di vision Bench that is challenged in this appeal. Shortly stated, the ground on which the learned Judges allowed the respondent's appeal were : (1) that the decision of the Customs authorities ;is regards the entry of the Tariff claBBification within which an imported commodity fell was not final but was open to judicial review and had ultimately to be decided by the Courts, ( 2)

In the case before the Court, entry 32 reading "grain" had, in the absence of any specific entry regarding oats to be read as excluding all grains which would be '.'fodder" i.e., which were usually used as cattle or animal feed, and that as the respondent had imported the oats for use as horse-feed the proper item within which the goods imported fell was item 42-Fodder etc. In arriving at this conclusion the learned Judges referred to the answer of the Deputy Chief Controller to the query by the respondent to which we have adverted earlier, as a circumstance indicative of the doubts entertained by the departmental authorities themselves on this matter. With very great respect to the learned Judges we are unable to agree with them both as regards the fupctio? apd jurisdictio.-i of the Court ip 111atterf! 11111 T/,. Co/U<tor of CUHtums. Madr41 K. Gai ga SlllJ Th< C.11"1" •f Ciul•m~, N.Uru K. Gago Sett;• A,,,,..,.,.

J. of this type, as well a.a in their actual construction of the relevant entries in the Import Trade Circular. As regards the limits of the jurisdiotion of the Court it is s1'1fioient to refer to tho decision in Venkatesvamm v. Wadhwani. (1) That was a oase where a party moved the High Court under Art.226 of the Constitution, and not as here under s. 45 of the Spooifio Relief Act under whioh the power of the Court to interfere is certainly narrower and not wider. This Court proceeded on the basis that it is primarily for tho Import Control authorities to determine the head or Plitry under which any particular commodity fell; but that if in doing so, these authorities adopted a construction which no reasonable person could adopt i.e., if the construotion was perverRe then it was a case in which tho Court was compet{lnt to interfere.

In other words, if there wore two constructions which an entry could reasonably bear, and one of them which was in favour of Revenue was adopted, the Court has no jurisdiction to interfera merely because the other interpretation favourable to the subject appeals to the Court as the better one to adopt. In the present case it could not be cont~nded that uncrushed oats did not answer the desoription of "grain" and therefore the deoision of the Customs authorities holding that the oats imported fell within item 32 could not be said to be a view which on no reasonable interpretation could bo entertained. In other words, the conclusion or decision of the Customs authorities was rationally supportable. Wo consider that even if there was no specific reference to "oats" in entry 32, any particular species of grain cannot be excluded merely because it is capable of being used as cattle or horse feed.

The word "fodder" is defined in the Oxford dictionary as "dried food, hay, straw eto. for stall feeding cattle". Without resorting to (I) 4J.ll. [1961] s.c. IS06t J Johnson's famous definition of "oats" in his Diotionary, it is suffioient to point out that oats, though they may serve as food. for horses, is also used as human food; in other words it is not by its nature or characteristic capable of serving solely as food for animals and incapable of use in the human dietary. For instance, all coarse grainslike Ragi. and Khambu-.serve as food for man as well as for cat tie. The mere fact therefore that a grain is capable of being used as horse or other cattle feed does not make it "fodder" excluding it from the category of grain to which it admittedly belongs.

The decision of the Assistant Collector and of the Collector on appeal holding the oats imported by the respondent to be grain cannot therefore be characterised as perverse or malafide and in . the circumstances we consider that the learned Judges of the High Court erred in interfering with the order of the appellant. In this particular case however, the matter is placed beyond the pale of controversy by the specific reference to "oats" in entry 32 where "grain" is classified into two categories "oats" and '•other grains". It is apparent that unfortunately .the attention of the learned Judges was not drawn to the entry in full, because, in the course of the judgment they point out that the construction of entry 42 would be different if there had been a specific reference to oats in entry 32. Learned CounKel for the respondent laid some stress on the respondent having been misled by the answer of the Deputy Chief Controller of Exports to a query as regards the scope of entry 42.

The answer which was stated to have misled was in these terms ; "Feed oats classifiable under serial 42 of Part IV can be imported under Open Genera.I License No .. XXIII" Thi Colltctor o_f Cuatmru, JI dri11 K. Ga11g• Set!JI 1'62 Tht C.l/".'or of CusWM, Ma,r.i11 K. Gonga Seliy A:1.1""1or J. 284 SUPREME OOURT REPORTS [1963] an anRwer b} no means a model of clarity. This letter is dated September 14, 1951, and it is the case of the respondent that he placed an order for the import of "feed-oats" because he was led to believe that for its import no licence was necessary.

The contract for the purohase of the goods for import was entered into in the beginning of June, J 052, but before that date the Deputy Chief Controller wrote a further letter to the rP.spondent on January l, 1952, clarifying the answer he gave in his eii.rlier letter, and pointing out that whereas if the oats were in wholegrain it would fall within item 32, but if the same was crushed, it would be «fodder" within item 42. The respondent however, denied having received this letter and there is no specific finding on this point by the learned Judges of the High Court. Wo do not propose to record any finding either. We are drawing attention to this matter merely for pointing out that it is a matt~'r which the authorities could properly take into account in modifying, if they consider that the rcspondt:nt haR really been misled, the quantum of penalty imposed on the respondent. The appeal is accordingly allowed and the order of the Division Bench of the High Court set aside.

The applica.tion filed by the respondent under s. 45 of the Specific Relief Act will stand dismissed. In the circumstances of the ease we din·ct that the parties bear their own costs in this Court. Appeal allowed.