The Delhi Bench of the Customs, Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal(CESTAT) upheld the confiscation of misdeclared imported goods as there was undervaluation in the Bill of Entry and the assesee failed to declare the correct export value of goods.
M/s.Decor Rubber Industries, the appellant, has been importing goods namely unbranded “Reflective Sheets”. Acting on intelligence, the containers covered under the bill of entry filed by the appellant through its Customs Broker M/s. Sajeev Kumar was preliminarily examined. The imported goods were found to be supplied by M/s. Changzhou Hua R Sheng Reflective Materials Co. Ltd., China.
The goods were found to be rolls of branded Reflective Sheets of the brand name “Sablite”. Two types of reflective sheets of series TM3200 AB and TM1800 of 1219 and 5 rolls respectively were found. The value of these goods declared in the Bill of Entry was Rs.15,41,721.53 (USD 32758.58). The examining officer doubted these values as they were too low. The goods were detained and a market survey was done which showed that the price of similar Reflective Sheets was Rs.8,000 per roll and other reflective sheets were priced at Rs.36,000/- to Rs.39,000/- per roll.
During the investigation, it was also found that the appellant had imported the same goods through fourteen other bills of entries in the past declaring similar prices. It was felt that the goods imported under these past Bills of Entry were also undervalued and were, therefore, liable to confiscation.
The Values in consignments of goods were found to be undervalued. It was alleged that the importer-appellant had fraudulently suppressed the correct transaction value of the imported goods by fabricating import documents with the intent to evade payment of appropriate duties of customs.
A show cause notice was issued demanding differential duty under the proviso to section 28(1) of the Act alongwith interest under Sections 28AA and 28AB. The Goods were proposed to be confiscated under section 111 (m) of the Customs Act, 1962. In addition, the penalty was proposed to be imposed on them under sections 112 (a), 112 (b), 114A and 114AA of the Act ibid. The proposals in the SCN were confirmed by the impugned order.
The undervaluation was to that extent based upon the documents which have already been held admissible in terms of Section 139 of the Customs Act. The quotation from M/s. Surya Plastics was obtained by the competent officers during the investigation. Nothing has been produced by the appellant to rebut the presumption of Section 139 of the Customs Act even qua the said quotation/market inquiry.
There was no error when the adjudicating authority concluded that the comparison makes it clear that for the same Bill of Lading and invoice, the importer declared very little value of the transaction in the Bills of Entry in contrast to the value as declared by the exporter in his country for the same invoice.
It was found that the invoice had been manipulated between export and import ports and an invoice depicting less value was presented to the Indian Customs to evade the legitimate duty of customs the importer succeeded in his intention many times till the documents from overseas came to the notice of the Department. The overseas documents when compared with the details in the import documents established that the importer has misdeclared the value of the goods at the time of import by forging the invoice.
A two-member bench of Dr Rachna Gupta, Member (Judicial) And Mr P V Subba Rao, Member (Technical) held that the appellant mis-declared the goods while importing them.
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