Case Law Details
In re BASF India Limited (CAAR Mumbai)
The question raised in the applicant’s application for Advance Ruling was whether the said Vitamin Premixes were classifiable under Heading 23.09 or under Heading 29.36. The said question raised in the applicant’s application is the same as in number of matters decided by the Appellate Tribunal and Courts, which in fact had been relied upon by the applicant in the proceedings for advance ruling before this Hon’ble Authority and which are herein after referred to. Consequently, in view of the bar contained in Section 28-1 (2) of the Act, the Application for advance ruling filed by the applicant could not in law, have been proceeded with and decided upon. That the Advance Ruling Application was filed on account of a bona fide mistake on part of the applicant. However, the same was erroneously accepted and an Order was passed. Therefore, the Advance Ruling dated 08.07.2022 is void in the light of the proviso to the Section 81(2) of the Customs Act, 1962, and it is accordingly prayed that the said ruling dated 8 July 2022 be recalled/rectified/modified.
In this regard, I find that even though the applicant has cited many case laws and have said that they are similar and identical goods however in the absence of test reports and details of the composition of the goods, they cannot be treated as identical or similar goods.
The interesting fact is the applicant has approached the Authority only in respect of the current application and has sought to recall, modify, rectify or make the ruling void ab-initio. They claimed the applicability of the case laws in respect of other cases also and the same case laws were relied in most of them. However, they have not sought to make the rulings in those cases void ab-initio as most of them are favorable to them. This clearly reveals that the applicant has not approached this forum with clean hands and have tried to twist facts and laws to circumvent the ruling.
FULL TEXT OF THE ORDER OF CUSTOMS AUTHORITY OF ADVANCE RULING, DELHI
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