Commissioner of Customs Vs Novo Nordisk India Pvt. Ltd. (CESTAT Chennai)
CESTAT Chennai held that insulin manufactured using r-DNA technology would qualify as a mono component insulin and hence benefit of exemption notification under Notification No. 12/2012 – Cus. dated 17.03.2012 available.
Facts- The respondent claimed to be importing the products viz., Insulatard, Mixtard and Actrapid which are human insulin and Novomix, NovoRapid, Levemir, Ryzodeg and Tresiba which are insulin analogues by classifying the same under HSN 30043110. The respondent has been filing Bills of Entry claiming exemption from payment of customs duty and CVD with SAD/IGST under Notification No. 12/2012 – Cus. dated 17.03.2012 [Sl. No. 148] and Sl. No. 167 r/w. entry No. 63 of List 4 of Notification No. 50/2017 – Cus. dated 30.06.2017, for the said goods.
One consignment of insulin declared as monocomponent insulin vide Bill of Entry dated October 26, 2016 was intercepted by the SIIB, Custom House, Chennai. Respondent-assessee appears to have self-assessed the goods under Customs Tariff Item 3004 3110 to ‘NIL’ duty by way of claiming the above exemptions. Basis the investigation, the Respondent-assessee was issued with a SCN wherein the main allegation was that the goods imported by the them did not qualify to be “monocomponent insulins”. A demand of Rs. 1,67,43,49,227 was thus proposed for the period November 2014 to September 2017 invoking the extended period of limitation under the provisions of Section 28 of the Customs Act, 1962, as the benefit of Notification/s claimed by the respondent was allegedly not available to them.
