The New Delhi Bench of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT), confirmed penalty on the ground that there was import of restricted goods in violation of ITC(HS) Import Policy and non-declaration of correct value.
Aggarwal Traders, the appellant has filed this appeal to assail the order passed by the Commissioner of Customs (Appeals) by which the orderpassed by the Additional Commissioner of Customs rejecting the declared assessable value of the goods and re-determining the same and ordering for confiscation of the goods with an option to redeem the same on payment of redemption fine and also imposing penalty under section 112(a)(i) of the Customs Act, 19623 , has been upheld, and the appeal has been dismissed.
The appellant had filed three Bills of Entry in August 2020 for clearance of the goods described as Defective Tinplate Coil and Defective Tinplate Misprint Sheets under Customs Tariff Heading 7210 12 90.
The Special Investigation Intelligence Branch investigated the aforesaid three Bills of Entry and noticed that the declared price of the goods was below the Minimum Import Price and, therefore, violated Policy Condition No. 1 of the ITC(HS) Import Policy which prescribed that the specified defective items can be imported free, except those for which the CIF value of imports was below the value specified for the said items.
The Additional Commissioner noted that since the importer had undervalued the imported goods and, therefore, misdeclared the value in the entry made in Bills of Entry under section 46(1) of the Customs Act, the goods became liable for confiscation under section 111(m) of the Customs Act. The Additional Commissioner thereafter proceeded to re-determine the assessable value.
The Counsel for the appellant submitted that the Commissioner (Appeals) was not justified in upholding the order passed by the Additional Commissioner and that it was not open to the Additional Commissioner to re-determine the assessable value at such a high rate even if the appellant had submitted the letter.
The Counsel also submitted that in any case neither were the goods liable to confiscation under section 111(m) and 111(o) of the Customs Act nor could penalty be imposed under section 112 (a)(i) of the Customs Act.
Rule 12(1) of the Customs Valuation (Determination of Value of Imported Goods) Rules, 2007 indicates that when the proper officer has reason to doubt the truth or accuracy of the value of the imported goods, he may ask the importer to furnish further information.
The Bench comprising Justice Dilip Gupta, President and Hemambika R Priya, echnical Member observed that “The Additional Commissioner has noted that as the importer had tried to import the restricted goods in violation of the provisions of the ITC(HS) Import Policy and the value had not been correctly declared, the goods were liable to confiscation. There is, therefore, no error in the order.”
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