The Chennai Bench of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal ( CESTAT ) granted benefit of customs duty exemption as the minimum operating voltage of patch cord is above 80 Volt AC.
The appellant filed Bills of Entry through their CHA for the clearance of goods declared as ‘Patch Cord’ (copper cable) among other things. The goods were supplied by M/s. Commscope Solutions (Singapore) Pvt. Ltd., Singapore. The appellants claimed the benefit of Notification No. 25/2005-CUS dated 01.03.2005 at Sl.No.29 for the item Patch Cord imported by them.
The department was of the view that the appellant is not eligible for the benefit of the Notification as the operating voltage should be more than 80 volts and the imported good operate only at 72 volts. The original authority denied the benefit and confirmed the differential duty along with interest. Against this, appellant filed appeal before the Commissioner (Appeals) who upheld the same Hence the appeal.
The Counsel Karthik Sundaram appeared and argued the matter. It was submitted that the benefit of Notification has been denied to the appellant on an erroneous interpretation of the Notification. The Ld. Counsel has pointed out that as per the product literature, it goods complied with ISO with IEC International Standard of 11801-1.
It was pointed by the Counsel that the goods imported by the appellant would function up to the voltage of 300V. It was held by the Commissioner (Appeals) that the appellants have wrongly claimed the benefit of the Notification by submitting that the goods would operate in more than 80 volts. The Counsel submitted that the Notification mentions only the voltage and does not mention whether AC or DC current. The product specifications mention voltage in DC current and when converted into AC, the same would fulfil the condition of the Notification.
A Two-Member Bench comprising Vasa Seshagiri Rao, Technical Member and Sulekha Beevi CS, Judicial Member observed that “It requires to be mentioned that the Notification does not mention AC or DC voltage. However, the imported product specification mentions DC voltage. The ISO specification of 11801-1 extracted above, shows that the minimum operating voltage of such product is 72 volts. This is Direct Current and when converted into alternate current (AC) it would be 101. Thus, the minimum operating voltage of the product is definitely above 80 volt AC. So also, the maximum operating voltage is 300. The product thus falls within the operating voltage mentioned at Sl.No.29 of the Notification. We therefore are convinced that the goods are eligible for the benefit of the Notification.”
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