Official Gazette publication alone activates tariff-value notifications under customs law, defeating delay-based challenges to duty demands.

Publication in the Official Gazette is sufficient to bring a tariff-value notification under Section 14(2) of the Customs Act, 1962 into force. The Court treated the attested Gazette copy as official evidence carrying a presumption of genuineness under the Evidence Act and held that, absent cogent rebuttal, delayed public availability did not postpone operation of the notification. It distinguished exemption notifications requiring further public offering from tariff-value notifications, which have no such additional requirement. The notification was therefore effective from 3-8-2001, and the challenge to the differential customs duty demand failed.

---

---

Issues: Whether Notification No. 36/2001-Cus. (N.T.) fixing the tariff value of RBD Palmolein oil was effective from 3-8-2001 on publication in the Official Gazette, so as to sustain the demand for differential customs duty.

Analysis: The dispute turned on the legal effect of publication of a tariff-value notification under Section 14(2) of the Customs Act, 1962. The Court noted that, unlike Section 25(4) of the Customs Act, 1962 dealing with exemption notifications, Section 14(2) contains no requirement that the notification must also be offered for sale to the public to become effective. The attested Gazette copy showing publication on 3-8-2001 was produced, and the Gazette was treated as an official record whose contents carry a presumption of genuineness under Sections 35, 38 and 81 of the Evidence Act, 1872. In the absence of satisfactory rebuttal evidence, the Court declined to accept the contention that delayed public availability postponed the operation of the notification. The Court also held that the earlier view of the Karnataka High Court did not prevail in light of the Supreme Court's ruling approving publication in the Official Gazette as sufficient.

Conclusion: The notification was validly published on 3-8-2001 and was effective from that date; the challenge to the duty demand failed.

Ratio Decidendi: For a notification issued under Section 14(2) of the Customs Act, 1962, publication in the Official Gazette is sufficient to bring it into operation, and where the Gazette publication is proved, a presumption of genuineness attaches unless rebutted by cogent evidence.

---