TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2024 (10) TMI 1075
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.... 'di-methyl lauryl amine (DMLA)' that M/s Galaxy Surfactants Limited had imported on payment of duties as well as against 'advance authorisation' obtained under the relevant scheme in the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP). There is the First Schedule to Customs Tariff Act, 1975, comprising ninety eight chapters in eighteen sections, with elaborate notes attending to both, signifying culmination of international concord on classification, that enumerates all goods known to production centres across the globe and plied, as a matter of course, in cross-border transactions. There is the Customs Tariff Act, 1975, to which this Schedule is appended, that incorporates the General Rules for Interpretation of the Import Tariff with intent of convergence of understanding on distinguishment among the headings of each chapter. And yet, here is a controversy which straddles not just two headings but, unimaginably, two chapters. Apparently and all too unusually, not only has the description of the goods in question been altered but the fitment between 'Amine function compounds' as description of heading 2921 of First Schedule to Customs Tariff Act, 1975 and 'Organic surface-active agents' as rele....
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....sort to the numerically subsequent one signifies uncertainty about applicability of the primary rule to decide upon the appropriate description. In such circumstances, with the adopted tariff line being determined as only the more apt in comparison, the similitude of description corresponding to the declared tariff line is, presumably, not in dispute and, thus, takes the edge of the revision by discounting misdeclaration in the bills of entry. 3. But, then, somewhere before that, and probably oblivious of consequence of drawing upon the third rule, the first was also relied upon as conclusive enough to substitute the tariff line for assessing duty short-paid or short-levied requiring us to precede comparative aptness with acceptability of the tariff line proposed in the show cause notice. This is where we encounter an impediment that not any of the submissions of both sides, steeped in technology and technicalities, can assist us in overcoming. That has all to do with structuring and design of the proposed classification which has everything to do with its adaptability as description of the impugned goods and which appears to have slipped by the adjudicating authority. As referred....
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....67,42,032 was ordered for recovery under section 28 of Customs Act, 1962 in addition to penalties and other detriments; furthermore, the export of 5505.100 metric tons of manufactured goods valued at Rs. 64,42,21,665 against 788 shipping bills was held as contrary to Customs Act, 1962 with attendant penalties and detriments. 5. It is on record that the impugned order has relied upon the results of the tests conducted by the Central Revenue Control Laboratory (CRCL) indicating that they are not describable as 'separate chemically defined compound' - or confirming to generic description - but, as 'function oriented', is an 'organic surface active agent' finding fitment elsewhere. It is at this point that, instead of drawing upon these results and other material supporting the description corresponding to the proposed tariff line in the First Schedule to Customs Tariff Act, 1975, in conjunction with the relevant notes in the proposed chapter of the First Schedule to Customs Tariff Act, 1975, the impugned order has veered from the prescribed path to first discard the declared classification. 6. To start with, the impugned order has presumed that disqualification as 'separate chemical....
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.... solubility of the impugned goods can, by rebuttal, be a ground to discard the declared classification. The contest to solubility appears to have been a counter to the proposed classification. Instead, the adjudicating authority has appropriated one of the parameters of inclusion from the impugned note in the impugned chapter to propose a characteristic that is neither borne out by the note nor from any authoritative text. Clearly, the disjunctive nature of the enumeration in the impugned note to chapter has not impressed itself on the adjudicating authority. 8. The proposed alternative within 'Organic surface active agent (other than soap), surface-active preparations, washing preparations (including auxiliary washing preparations) and cleaning preparations, whether or not containing soap, other than those of heading 3401' corresponding to heading 3402 of First Schedule to Customs Tariff Act, 1975 and, in particular at the sub-heading level as 'anionic', 'cationic', 'non-ionic' and 'other', is intended for 'organic surface-active...' as a sub-classification. It is abundantly clear from note 3 of chapter 34 of First Schedule to Customs Tariff Act, 1975 that there are physical c....