Procedural mistakes should not deprive exporters of the benefit of the reward under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) if they have fulfilled their export obligations.

JUDGMENT

Milind N. Jadhav, J. - Heard Mr. Bharat Raichandani a/w. Ms. Pragya Koolwal, learned counsel for the petitioner; and Mr. Pradeep Jetly, learned senior counsel a/w. Mr. Devesh Tripathi, learned counsel for the respondents.

2. By this petition filed under the provisions of Article 226 of the Constitution of India, petitioner has sought to challenge the rejection of its applications filed under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (for short "MEIS") by the respondents on the ground of mis-declaration of intent by the petitioner and thereby depriving the petitioner benefit under the said scheme.

2.1. Petitioner has however prayed for the following reliefs in the petition:-

"(a) that this Hon'ble Court be pleased to issue a Writ of Certiorari or a writ in the nature of Certiorari or any other writ, order or direction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India calling for the records pertaining to the Petitioner case and after going into the validity and legality of the provisions and direct the respondent No. 2 to issue such directions/orders to the respondents to guide the petitioner by communicating the exact modification required, if any, in the form submitted by the petitioner and to allow benefit under Merchandise Exports from India Scheme to the petitioner;

(b) that this Hon'ble Court be pleased to issue a Writ of Mandamus or a writ in the nature of Mandamus or any other writ, order or direction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India calling for the records pertaining to the Petitioner case and after going into the validity and legality of the provisions and direct the respondents to issue such directions to the Respondents to pass such directions to the respondents to guide the petitioner by communicating the exact modification required, if any, in the form submitted by the petitioner and to allow benefit under Merchandise Exports from India Scheme to the petitioner;

(c) For interim and ad-interim reliefs in terms of prayer clause (a) to clause (b);

(d) For costs of this Petition;

(e) For such and other reliefs as the nature and circumstances of the case may required."

3. Before we advert to the submissions made on behalf of the respective parties, it will be apposite to briefly refer to the relevant facts as pleaded:-

3.1. Petitioner is a private limited company situated in Santacruz Electronics Export Processing Zone (for short "SEEPZ"), a Special Economic Zone in Mumbai and engaged in the manufacture and export of electronic motors. Petitioner is entitled to special fiscal provisions as envisaged in the Special Economic Zone Act, 2005 (for short "SEZ Act") in respect of goods manufactured and exported by the petitioner being eligible and notified products under the MEIS.

3.2. Since 01.04.2015 petitioner has been exporting electronic motors to notified markets and claiming benefit under the MEIS in the manner prescribed under paragraph 3 of the Handbook of Procedure (HBP). For this purpose petitioner has been filing applications online using its digital signature on the Director General of Foreign Trade (for short "DGFT") portal by filing the requisite details in the appropriate form to claim reward under MEIS. The reward is received in the form of duty credit scrips.

3.3. In the present case, the exports of petitioner are made through SEEPZ i.e. the Non-EDI port. These Non-EDI (manual) shipping bills are not transmitted electronically by Customs Department to DGFT. Hence petitioner is required to manually enter the data for all such shipping bills and file MEIS applications separately on the DGFT portal in respect of each shipping bill to claim reward under MEIS after completion of export obligations.

3.4. Petitioner filed applications dated 09.03.2017 and 06.09.2017 on the DGFT portal as well as before the regional authority to claim reward under MEIS against various shipping bills.

3.5. By letters dated 31.08