2024-VIL-375-CESTAT-DEL-CU
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CUSTOMS CESTAT Cases

Customs - Multiple assessments of Bills of Entry – Appellant case that Section 17 of the Customs Act, 1962 provides for self-assessment by the importer and re-assessment by the proper officer. Once the Bill of Entry is re-assessed, there is no scope for the proper officer to again reopen and make a third or fourth assessment – whether multiple assessments resorted to by the assessing officers contrary to the provisions of section 17 of the Act – HELD - Nothing in section 17 of the Customs Act, 1962 states that the officer can re-assess only once and not more than once - the submission of the appellant that a second reassessment is not permissible after re-assessment by the officer under section 17 is not correct. It is also incorrect to say that once the re-assessment order is issued, another order of provisional assessment cannot be issued - an assessment is not always a one-shot affair and the proper officer who does the assessment will have to revise the assessment on receiving additional inputs from the examining officer or otherwise - until the order clearing the goods for home consumption under section 47 of the Act is issued, the goods continue to be imported goods and assessment and re-assessment is permissible more than once. It is this flexibility within the system which greatly facilitates trade and expedites clearances while providing an opportunity to the assessing officer to make changes in the assessment if necessitated before clearing the goods for home consumption – appeal is partly allowed - Principles of natural justice - the appellant submitted that the principles of natural justice were violated because no SCN was issued to the appellant before finalizing the assessment – HELD - Regular assessment under section 17 or its finalization under section 18 have no provision for issue of SCN. However, if the duty is re-assessed under section 17(2) by the proper officer, unless the importer accepts such reassessment in writing, he has to issue a speaking order within 15 days. Similarly, nothing in section 18 which deals with provisional assessment or its finalization provides for issue of an SCN. In these cases, initially, the Bills of Entry were provisionally assessed awaiting the test reports of CRCL on receiving which the assessments were finalized. The appellant was provided copies of the test reports and the appellant made written submissions which were considered – there is no violation of either any provision of the Act or the principles of natural justice in not issuing an SCN to the appellant before finalizing the assessment - Whether the Deputy Commissioner, ICD, Piyala is the proper officer to finalise the assessment – the appellant submitted that as per the judgment of the Supreme Court in Canon India, the Deputy Commissioner, ICD, Piyala was not the proper officer to finalise the assessment - HELD – the submission of appellant is completely misplaced. Canon India was on the question as to whether an officer of DRI is the proper officer to issue a notice under section 28 and the Supreme Court held in negative. In this case, neither was a notice issued under section 28 nor is an officer of DRI involved. The provisional assessment order was issued by Assistant Commissioner, ICD, Piyala and it was finalized by the Deputy Commissioner, ICD, Piyala. A successor in office naturally completes the action by the predecessor. Therefore, no infirmity in the order of finalization of assessment being done by the successor officer - Classification of the imported goods - whether goods declared as ‘Amino acids’ are classifiable under CTI 29379090 as claimed by the appellant or under CTI 21069099 as classified by the department – HELD - The composition of the imported goods as seen from the labels shows clearly that they are mixtures of amino acids, vitamins, a few stimulants like caffeine and tea and some flavours and nothing suggests that they are hormone stimulating or hormone inhibiting factors. The impugned goods do not merit classification under CTI2937 90 90 - The imported goods are not protein concentrates (such as whey protein) but are mixtures of amino acids, vitamins, etc. for use by dissolving in water. In our considered view, Chapter Note 5(b) squarely puts the imported goods under heading 2106 and since they do not exactly fall under any of the other Customs Tariff Items, CTI 2106 90 99 is the correct classification. However, the enhancement of value cannot be sustained.
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