8 yrs on, DRI drops charges against city hotelier Kapoor

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 5

More than eight years after initiating proceedings against Gautam Kapoor, a prominent exporter and owner of Radisson Hotel, Jalandhar, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has cleared him of all charges of misusing a government scheme for import of cars by hotels at concessional duty.

Welcoming the orders, Kapoor said, “The allegations had quite apparently been motivated by business rivalry or political affiliations. Justice has, however, finally prevailed.”

It has been found that the cars had been imported and used as per the provisions of the government policy with the hotel following the laid down conditions, said a spokesperson for Radisson, Jalandhar, adding that after the Common Adjudicating Authority dropped the DRI proceedings, they had received the necessary redemption letters from various authorities. With this, all the cases against Kapoor had been dropped.

According to the spokesperson, they had applied for the issuance of redemption letters at the Director General Foreign Trade (DGFT) office on the ground that they had fulfilled 100 per cent export obligation and had also complied with other conditions of the duty-free licence for the import of cars. The spokesperson they initiated their move after the DRI proceedings were dropped by the Common Adjudicating Authority.

These redemption letters were then submitted to customs of different ports, through which those cars were imported. Subsequently, the Commissioners of Customs of these ports issued the redemption letters, the last of which was received from Commissioner Nhava Sheva Port, for import of an Audi car, in December 2019.