The Customs, Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal New Delhi ruled that mere acceptance of reassessed value and payment thereof will not be sufficient to confirm allegations Of under valuation.
Facts
The appellant filed Bill of Entry No. 8051193 dated 02.01.2017 through their CHA M/s Prompt Air and Sea Cargo Pvt. Ltd. for clearance of the imported goods called Brass Ceramic Cartridge (L) size ½” Parts for use in Sanitary ware.
However, the goods covered under the said Bill of Entry were examined and the container was also weighed. The net weight was found as 21120 kg., however, the weight as per packaging list was 20160 kg. whereas the weight declared in the Bill of Entry was 18144 kg.
Thus 2976 kg weight of the consignment was found in excess than the declared weight. The value declared in said Bill of Entry was also observed to be low. Accordingly, goods were seized under section 110 of the Customs Act, 1962.
Submissions
L.B. Yadav, Consultant for the Appellant, submitted that there is neither the mis-declaration nor the under valuation in the impugned Bills of Entry. The allegations are vehemently denied with mention that the brass ceramic cartridges have been imported into pieces and the value is per piece based value. The weight has no consequence nor any connection with the value. Otherwise also the container as such including the packaging materials was got weighed. Hence, the same has wrongly been held to be a case of mis-declaration.
Rakesh Kumar, departmental representative for the Revenue, submitted that on examination there was found excess weight of 2976 kg. in the consignment imported by the appellant. This was a reasonable ground to doubt the declaration as far as the quantity and also as far as the value of consignment is concerned.
Decision
The division bench of Rachna Gupta Member (Judicial) and Hemambika R. Priya Member (Technical) observed that the Adjudicating Authority has mentioned the market survey report to be based on contemporaneous import data, but no such data has been mentioned in the order.
The tribunal said that it is rather coming as an admitted fact that few shops in the wholesale market were visited and the samples which was drawn at the time of examination of impugned imported goods were shown to the different vendors.
“It is only one shop keeper who has similar items, as were imported vide the impugned Bill of Entry. But there is no evidence brought on record by the department that the said shop keeper also had imported the goods. These observations of the Adjudicating Authority are sufficient for us to hold that the Department has not followed the statutory procedure nor has produced the cogent evidence while confirming the allegations of under valuation and while confirming the differential duty”, the bench said.
The bench observed that in the original submissions made on behalf of the appellant, it is mentioned that to avoid any delay and the demurrage charges, in case the consignment is held by the Customs Authority, that the appellant opted to pay the differential amount demanded by them. The voluntary payment hence cannot be called as admission of the appellant towards alleged mis-declaration for value from the above discussion.
Case title: M/s River Side Impex v/s Commissioner (Preventive)
Citation: Customs Appeal No. 52057 Of 2019
