Prestige Polymers Pvt. Ltd. Vs Commissioner of Customs (CESTAT Delhi)
CESTAT Delhi held that duty has to be paid when goods imported into an SEZ are not used for the authorised operations but are sold in Domestic Tariff Area. Accordingly, in such case, duty demand has to be raised as per the Customs Act.
Facts- Prestige is an authorised unit in the Special Economic Zone, Shri Bhalla was the Director of Prestige and Shri Kapoor was the Authorised Officer of Prestige during the relevant period. Prestige imported LED display panels of televisions of Malaysian origin through eight Bills of Entry without paying any duty, brought them into its SEZ unit and then cleared them under six Bills of Entry to buyers in Domestic Tariff Area. In these six Bills of Entry, Prestige had not paid Basic Customs Duty and Special Additional Duty of Customs claiming the benefit of Notification No.12/2012-Customs (Sl. No. 432) dated 17.3.2012 as amended, and Notification No. 45/2005-Cuss dated 16.5.2005 as amended.
It was felt by the department during audit that Prestige had not paid BCD and SAD on the six Bills of Entry by wrongly claiming the benefit of the Notifications. Accordingly, the SCN dated 10.2.2017 was issued which culminated in the impugned order.
