Pre-shipment inspection certificate compliance protects scrap importers from confiscation where authorised agency certification was already obtained.

Import of heavy melting scrap was treated as compliant where the importer produced pre-shipment inspection certificates issued through Bureau Veritas, including its Mumbai office, an authorised and notified agency. The relevant DGFT public notice was read as satisfied once a certificate from an authorised agency was available. The later DGFT clarification dated 18-2-2005 was held inapplicable to a transaction already completed, because the inspection and import had occurred before that clarification and the consignment had already landed in India. Confiscation and penalty were therefore set aside.

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Issues: Whether the import of heavy melting scrap was covered by the required pre-shipment inspection certificate from an authorised agency, and whether the later DGFT clarification dated 18-2-2005 could be applied to deny the benefit.

Analysis: The importer had produced inspection certificates issued through Bureau Veritas, including the Mumbai office, which was a notified and authorised agency. The requirement under the relevant DGFT public notice was treated as satisfied once an authorised agency certificate was available. The subsequent clarification could not govern the transaction because the inspection and import had taken place before that clarification was issued, and the consignment had already landed in India by then.

Conclusion: The confiscation and penalty were not sustainable. The finding that the import was not covered by the specified inspection certificate was set aside in favour of the assessee.

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