In Brief
This review petition challenges the Supreme Court's 2021 judgment in Canon India, which held that DRI (Directorate of Revenue Intelligence) officers lacked jurisdiction to issue show-cause notices under Section 28 of the Customs Act. The Court held that DRI officers are properly appointed officers of customs and, when assigned functions via notification, are competent to issue such notices. The Court found that Sections 17 (assessment) and 28 (recovery) are distinct statutory functions with no mandatory linkage. Importantly, the amendment to Section 17 via the Finance Act 2011 introduced self-assessment, eliminating the requirement for officers to conduct initial assessments. The Court upheld the constitutional validity of Section 28(11) and Section 97 of the Finance Act 2022, which retrospectively validate show-cause notices, finding no defect and rejecting arguments of arbitrariness under Article 14.
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