Tendulkar's Ferrari car issue adjourned

The Public interest litigation challenging the Rs 1.13 crore duty exemption to Sachin Tendulkar for the Ferrari car gifted by Fiat was adjourned by a division bench of the Kerala high court after the petitioner submitted that he was approaching the Supreme court on Monday.

The counsel for the NRI petitioner, Sanu Joe Mathew, submitted that he would be approaching the Apex court under Article 129 (A) of the constitution.

Also Read Does Sachin deserve the duty exemption?

The article stipulates that cases involving same or substantially same question of law, pending before Supreme court or one or more high courts, and if SC was satisfied it could withdraw the cases pending before various high courts and dispose of all the cases by itself.

Following this submission, the bench, comprising chief Justice J L Gupta and Justice A K Basheer adjourned the case.

According to the petitioner, the exemption is 'illegal' and 'discriminatory' as no public interst was involved in granting the exemption to Tendulkar. If the government had collected the duty from the cricketer, it could have been utilised for some public welfare scheme.

Section 25 of the Customs Act empowers the Central government to waive customs duty on imported goods if it was satisifed that exemption should be given in public interest. It also stipulates that exemption should be granted only in exceptional cases. Besides, a notification also needs to be published in the gazettee, he said.