Benefit of concessional rate of customs duty on ‘Coated Paper’ was allowable

PLG Impex Vs Commissioner of Customs (CESTAT Delhi)

Conclusion: The ‘coated paper’, as certified by the competent authority designated under the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), did not conform to the description corresponding to sub-heading 8410.13 of First Schedule to Customs Tariff Act, 1975. The denial of the benefit of the concessional rate of duty being improper and the impugned order was set aside.

Held: In the instant case, the consignments of ‘coated paper’ imported by M/s PLG Impex, a proprietary concern against bills of entry. Assessee challenged the authority for denying the benefit of concessional rate of customs duty on coated paper certified by authority designated under CEPA. It was held that yet, the universal customs classification code did segregate paper produced from pulp of ‘chemical’ or, substantially of ‘chemical processing’, and paper produced from pulp of ‘mechanical or chemi-mechanical processing’ and the possibility of distinguishing the two was implicit thereby. It was, probably, owing to the uniformity of rates of duty for the articles covered within heading 4810 of the First Schedule to Customs Tariff Act, 1975 that such disputation did not arise to bring the mechanism for distinguishing to the fore. The distinction between the two was now manifest in the rates of duty applicable to imports from Japan and, to the extent that the preferential rate was linked to the origin which itself was to be accepted on the basis of prescribed certification, the classification too would have to rest on that same certification. The descriptions in the relevant tariff items were emphatically unambiguous, the rules of classification clearly delineate the distinction and the onus for disturbing classification is unequivocally enunciated as the law of the land. The classification can be revised only by determination of the process by which the pulp was extracted. The cursory finding in the test report was not reliable in the absence of standard test for determination of the source of pulp deployed for manufacture of the impugned goods. The ‘coated paper’, as certified by the competent authority designated under the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), did not conform to the description corresponding to sub-heading 8410.13 of First Schedule to Customs Tariff Act, 1975. The denial of the benefit of the concessional rate of duty being improper, the impugned order was set aside and appeal allowed with consequential relief.

FULL TEXT OF THE CESTAT JUDGEMENT

Ernest K Gann, author of Fate is the Hunter, would never have imagined that the title – ‘Rule books are paper – they will not cushion a sudden meeting of stone and metal’ – of one of the chapters of this iconic work is an apt description of the parallel tracks on which the rival contentions in this appeal concerning the entitlement for concessional rate of duty on the import of, coincidentally, paper has traversed. Indeed, this product of plant fibre – whether from papyrus in the ancient times or from wood in our own – on which has been documented the celebrations and controversies, as well as the ideas and incidents, of civilization is so indispensable to daily living as to offer little room for contentious distinguishment. And so it was until treaty negotiators of the Indo-Japanese Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), 2011 excepted paper that had been manufactured from pulp obtained by chemical processing or, when mixed with other pulp, containing no more than a tenth of the fibre content obtained by mechanical or chemi-mechanical process from concessional rate of duty extended to other varieties of ‘coated paper’ enumerated within heading 4810 of the First Schedule to Customs Tariff Act, 1975.

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