The Delhi Bench of the Customs, Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal(CESTAT) held that customs duty exemption is available on imported Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) as they do not support Long Term Evolution(LTE) standard…
The Commissioner of Customs (Air) challenged the order passed by the Additional Director General (Adjudication), holding that Wireless Access Points / MIMO Product (products having MIMO Technology) imported by Beetal Teletech Limited would be classifiable under Customs Tariff Item 8517 62 90 and accordingly would be entitled to exemption from Basic Customs Duty under the notification dated 01.03.2005, as amended by the notification dated 11.07.2014.
The demand for customs duty for the period from July 2014 to June 2017 has, therefore, been dropped. The penalty imposed upon Beetal Teletech has also been dropped.
Beetal Teletech, the respondent is a distributor of Information Technology products. It imported WAP from various foreign suppliers for trading purposes in India and it classified the imported WAP under CTI 8517 62 90 during the period from July 2014 to June 2017. According to the appellant, WAP works on Multiple Input/Multiple Output technology but does not support Long Term Evolution standard.
The question is regarding the availability of the exemption from the whole of the customs duty claimed by Beetal Teletech under the notification. The Central Government, by the said notification, exempted the goods described in column (3) of the Table when imported into India, from the whole of the duty of customs leviable thereon. Serial No. 13 of heading 8517 exempts all goods, except those mentioned in (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv).
It was found that the scope of clause (iv) can be restricted to those products that have MIMO and LTE and that the product that only has MIMO technology may, therefore, not be covered by this exclusion clause and, therefore, may not be excluded from the scope of Serial No. 13.
The appellant contended that clause (iv) would effectively mean and cover two categories of products, namely, (i) Multiple Input/Multiple Output (MIMO) products and (ii) Long Term Evolution (LTE) products and that MIMO products and LTE products are products which have distinct identities. Learned special counsel also contended that the expression “Multiple Input/Multiple Output (MIMO)” appearing before “and‟ does not, by itself, mean anything unless it is followed by expressions like “technology‟ or “products”.
It has been stated that the investigation by the DRI was not only against Beetal Teletech but a few other importers of these goods also and the proceedings initiated against other importers were dropped but appeals have not been filed by the Department.
While dismissing the appeal, the coram comprising Justice Dilip Gupta, President and Mr Rajeev Tandon, Member (Technical) observed that “WAP imported by the appellant works on technology and does not support LTE standard. Ingram Micro was, therefore, justified in claiming exemption from the whole of the customs duty under Serial No. 13 (iv) of the notification. There is, therefore, no infirmity in the order dated 28.11.2019 passed by the Additional Director.”
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