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2024 (1) TMI 194 - AT - CustomsClassification of Wireless Access Points - eligibility for exemption under Notification No. 24/2005-Cus dated 01.03.2005, as amended by Notification No. 11/2014-Cus dated 11.07.2014. Whether the exclusion from duty exemption clause of the said notification, as amended, also covers products having only MIMO technology and not working on LTE standard and vice-versa or just the products having both the technologies? HELD THAT:- A bare perusal of the exclusion clause (iv) under Sl. No. 13 of notification shows that it covers MIMO and LTE products. Said exclusion Clause uses the conjunction ‘and’ and, therefore, it can be urged that the scope of clause (iv) can be restricted to those products that have MIMO and LTE both and that the product that only has MIMO technology may, therefore, may not be excluded from the scope of duty exemption benefit given at Serial No. 13 of the impugned notification as amended. The contention of the Department is that ‘and’ in clause (iv) should be read as ‘or’ so that it would cover MIMO products or LTE products as well. The contention advanced on behalf of Ingram Micro is that since the exclusion clause (iv) uses the conjunction ‘and’ its scope would be restricted to those products that have both MIMO as well as LTE technology. Thus, a product that has only MIMO technology would be out of the scope of the exclusion clause and at Serial No. 13 (iv) of the impugned notification and should be available with the customs duty exemption benefit given under said notification. It is observed that in the Serial no. 13(iv) of the Notification No. 57/2017-Cus. as amended the word ‘products’ is used only once. It is not used with Multiple Input/Multiple Output (MIMO) as well as Long Term Evolution (LTE). Whereas it is used once after both the products are being mentioned, same is not true for the other entries of the same notification. ‘Products’ being the common factor for both, MIMO technology and LTE standard, again corroborates that expression ‘and’ as used in the impugned entry has been used in a conjunctive way. From the above discussion it is held that ‘and’ used between Multiple Input/Multiple Output (MIMO); Long Term Evolution (LTE) is a conjunctive joining of both the said terms (MIMO/LTE). Hence it can reasonably be interpreted that the word ‘and’ in the impugned entry means that those products which contain both MIMO technology and LTE standards are excluded from the benefit of exemption of duty given to the goods classifiable under Chapter 8517 in view of the said entry no. 13 of Notification No. 57/2017-Cus. Thus, it becomes clear that in the clause (iv) of Sl. No. 13 of Notification No. 57/2017-Cus. which amended clause (h) of Sl. No 20 of Notification 02/2019-Cus. ‘and’ is a conjunctive. Hence the goods imported by the appellant since admittedly works on the MIMO technology only but do not support the LTE standard, they are held to be out of the scope of the impugned exclusion clause and thus are held eligible for the exemption from whole of the customs duty under Serial no. 13(iv) of the notification. The similar issue has earlier been deal with by this Tribunal vide Final Order No. 50831/2022 dated 12.09.2022 in the case titled as COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS (AIR) CHENNAI – VII COMMISSIONERATE VERSUS M/S. INGRAM MICRO INDIA PVT. LTD. [2022 (9) TMI 594 - CESTAT NEW DELHI]. There are no infirmity in the order under challenge. The department appeal is therefore dismissed.
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