The New Delhi Bench of Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) allowed the benefit of concessional rate of Customs Duty on Coated Paper’ certified by Authority designated under Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).
The appellant, PLG Impex challenged the impugning order-in-appeal of Commissioner of Central Excise & CGST (Appeals), Jaipur. The consignments of ‘coated paper’ imported by M/s PLG Impex, a proprietary concern of Shri Giriraj Gupta, against bills of entry, the former two, presented in rolls/reels, were detained pursuant to instruction dated 21st November 2019 requiring ‘no objection’ from Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) before being given ‘out of charge’ while the third, being in the form of sheets, was released on self-assessment without demur.
The coram headed by the President, Justice Dilip Gupta and Technical Member, C.J.Mathew said that the order of assessment revised the classification without the assistance of the samples and, in the light of the observations on the reliability of the admission statement as well as the aspersions cast by the first appellate authority on the documentation emanating from the manufacturers, this subsequently obtained test report is all that remains in the kitty of customs authorities as evidence of conformity of the impugned goods with the description corresponding to the tariff item adopted for assessment. The anchor of that evidence is the finding by the laboratory that the ‘paper’ is chemical. The first appellate authority did not consider it necessary to ascertain the methodology of that determination even though the report was bereft of any explanation. Nor is there any submission that standard tests for determination of the ‘pulp’ as having been extracted by ‘chemical process’ was available in the laboratory. Such unqualified reliance on a single sentence in the test report which abdicates the statutorily empowered determination in favour of the laboratory certification is not dissimilar to the abdication of empowerment to assess in favour of the investigation agency as both remain in the lee of statutory accountability.
“The descriptions in the relevant tariff items are emphatically unambiguous, the rules of classification clearly delineate the distinction and the onus for disturbing classification is unequivocally enunciated as the law of the land. The classification can be revised only by determination of the process by which the pulp was extracted. The cursory finding in the test report is not reliable in the absence of standard test for determination of the source of pulp deployed for manufacture of the impugned goods. The ‘coated paper’, as certified by the competent authority designated under the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), does not conform to the description corresponding to sub-heading 8410.13 of First Schedule to Customs Tariff Act, 1975. The denial of the benefit of the concessional rate of duty being improper, the impugned order is set aside and appeal allowed with consequential relief,” the CESTAT ruled.
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