make an Application before the Settlement Commission in such form and in such manner as may be specified by the Rules, and containing a full and true disclosure of his duty liability which has not been disclosed before the proper Officer, the manner in which such liability has been incurred, the additional amount of customs duty accepted to be payable by him and such other particulars as may be specified by the Rules. Thereafter, section 127B(1) stipulates that no such Settlement Application shall be made unless the conditions mentioned therein are complied with. We must at once mention here that section 28-AB was deleted from the Customs Act, 1962 and replaced with section 28-AA w.e.f. 8th April, 2011. Despite this, no corresponding amendment was carried out in section 127B (as reproduced above). Section 127B was amended much thereafter by Finance (No.2) Act, 2014 w.e.f. 6th August, 2014. Hence, even though section 28-AB was deleted from the statute books w.e.f. 8th April, 2011, a reference to the same still continued in section 127B till 6th August, 2014, when section 127B was amended. The reason why we are mentioning this is because when the Settlement Applications were filed by the Petitioners (i.e. on 27th May, 2014), reference to section 28-AB continued in section 127B even though the said section was deleted w.e.f. 8th April, 2011 and section 28-AA was substituted in its place.
