When it comes to short-circuiting payment of duties due to the Government, whether it is big corporations or small business firms, none of them is an exception.
Customs Officials attached to the Air Intelligence Wing seized the Airbus319 Corporate jet reported to be a birthday gift of Mr.Mukesh Ambani to his wife Nita along with a Falcon-900 of his group for alleged violation of Import rules to evade Customs duty.
Using the provisions of Customs Duty benefit that allows payment of a lower rate of duty for import of regular and non-scheduled (charter) aircrafts for commercial purposes, the RIL is alleged to have evaded the duty to the extent of about Rs.57Crores as these planes are being used for personal purposes. The import duty for aircrafts for personal use is at least double of that of commercial use.
Contrary to the claims made by RIL that they have not contravened any duty regulations and the planes have been released without any conditions in regard to their usage, Customs Officials maintain that they have been released only for maintenance purposes.
A political overtone is attached to the entire episode in the overgrowing fight between Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani. Peeved at the way his group’s talks with MTN have been derailed by motivated efforts of Mukesh, Anil is said to have utilized his political clout with SP to engineer this action so that Congress can move a step ahead in garnering its support to retain its power.
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