The Ahmedabad bench of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) upheld the rejection of a customs duty refund claim of approximately 4 crores on the clearance of crude petroleum oil on the grounds of short payment of Customs duty.
Reliance Industries Limited, the appellant assessee had imported a consignment of crude petroleum oil at Sikka Port and had filed 12 bills of entry for clearance of the Crude Petroleum Oil which were initially assessed provisionally and goods were cleared on payment of provisionally assessed customs duty.
The proper officer finalized the provisional assessment of the relevant bills of entry in April 2016 on the basis of the transaction value of the goods i.e. price paid by the assessee and the price that was indicated on the import invoice of the goods and the quantity of the Crude Petroleum Oil is mentioned on the bills of lading.
The assessee appealed against the order passed by the Commissioner (Appeals) for confirming the rejection of the refund claim of customs duty of an amount of Rs. 4,47,90,661/-.
JC Patel, Rahul Gajera and Shilpa Paloni, the counsels for the assessee contended that on finalization of the bills of entry, the proper officer found that the customs duty payable was less than the duty which was provisionally assessed and deposited by the assessee and as a result, the assessee become eligible for a refund of customs duty which was paid at the time of provisional clearance of subject goods.
Anoop Kumar Mudvel, the counsel for the department relied on the decisions made by the lower authorities and contended that the adjudicating authority had held that the correct and legitimate way to assess duty in the present case was to consider the quantity of Petroleum Crude oil received in India.
The Bench observed that in the case of Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited, the court held that a demand or duty on transaction value would be leviable despite “ocean loss”, it flies in the face of Section 23 of the Customs Act, 1962 in particular, the general statutory scheme and Rules 4 and 9 of the Customs Valuation Rules, 2007.
The two-member bench comprising Somesh Arora (Judicial) and C L Mahar (Technical) upheld the order passed by the Commissioner (Appeals) while dismissing the appeal filed by the assessee.
Subscribe Taxscan Premium to view the JudgmentSupport our journalism by subscribing to Taxscan premium. Follow us on Telegram for quick updates
