Provisional assessment cannot support short-levy recovery before final assessment is completed and the demand is premature.

Where goods are provisionally assessed, short-levy recovery cannot be confirmed before final assessment is completed. The order in question went beyond merely finalising the provisional assessment and sought to recover duty as short-levied even though the machinery for short-levy proceedings had not yet arisen. Because final assessment was still to be initiated, the confirmation of duty demand before that stage was not sustainable and the order could not stand.

---

---

Issues: Whether duty short-levy proceedings could be confirmed before the goods were finally assessed, when the original assessment was provisional.

Analysis: The goods had been provisionally assessed, and the impugned order did not merely finalise that assessment. It proceeded to confirm recovery of duty as short-levied, even though the stage for invoking the machinery relating to short-levy had not yet arisen. A recovery proceeding for short-paid duty can be sustained only after final assessment, and the order itself showed that final assessment was still to be initiated.

Conclusion: The confirmation of duty short-levy before final assessment was not sustainable and the order could not stand.

---