A two member bench of CESTAT ( Customs Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal ) has granted request for conversion of shipping bill based on Circular No.36/2010- Customs ( the notification regards to conversion of free shipping bills to export promotion scheme shipping bills and conversion of shipping bills from one scheme to another )
Assessee, Carl Zeiss India is involved in manufacture and assembly of Spectacle Lens and industrial Metrology Equipment’s. One of the divisional of the appellant is imported “Semi Finished Spectacle lens” and manufacturing spectacle lens for exporting from 2015 to 2020. During the relevant period they have obtained 5 advance authorisation from 03.09.2004 to 09.03.2016. Considering the volume of export, appellant converted the business to 100% EOU. Before converting into 100% EOU, internal audit was carried out and it is observed that they have failed to make endorsement regarding advance authorisation in the shipping bill from 03.09.2014 till 26.01.2015. Further from 18.11.2015 till 26.01.2016 they have opted for drawback scheme instead of endorsement of advance authorisation. Thus the appellant decided to make an adjustment in the document and made a request on 22.10.2020 seeking for letter of acceptance/NOC for converting shipping bill under drawback scheme to advance authorisation scheme. The request was supported with a certificate issued by an individual Chartered Accountant ( CA ) specifying the details of shipping bill wise details and advance authorisation against each shipping bill.
Assessee contended that as per the impugned order, the assessee is liable to pay customs duties on goods exported under Advance Authorizations in spite of fulfilling substantial export obligation in respect of all license covered in the order. In assessee’s case, the request for amendment is denied basically on the ground that the assessee failed to fulfill the condition No.3 of the Circular No.36/2010 dated 23.09.2010 related to conversion of shipping bills. Regarding circular No.36/2010 relied by the adjudicating authorities fixing the time limit for submitting an application for amendment of document under section 149 of the Customs Act 1962, the issue was considered by various authorities and as per
Revenue contended that the assessee had exported the shipping bills under duty drawback scheme instead of ‘Duty Entitlement Exemption Certificate ( DEEC ) scheme. Revenue further contended that the assessee does not satisfy the condition 3 Board’s Circular No. 36/2010-Customs.
The bench comprising P. A. Augustian ( Member, Judicial ) and R. Bhagya Devi ( Member. Technical ) set aside the impugned order rejecting the request for conversion of the shipping bill based on the Circular No.36/2010 dated 23.09.2010 is set aside. The issue is remanded for De-novo adjudication and adjudicating authority is directed to consider the documents produced by the appellant and to decide whether the appellant is entitled to the benefit of the scheme to which they want to convert their claim.
Assessee was represented by Rukmani Menon and Revenue was represented by K. A. Jathin, AR
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