Declared transaction value must rest on cogent evidence; unsupported enhancement, confiscation, and penalty cannot stand.

Declared transaction value of imported goods cannot be rejected or enhanced without cogent evidence supporting departure from the declared price. On the facts noted, contemporaneous ship stores imports and overseas retail price lists were not treated as legally sufficient material to re-determine value, so the declared value was accepted. In the absence of established misdeclaration of value, the consequential confiscation under the Customs Act and the penalty could not survive, and both were set aside.

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Issues: Whether the declared value of imported goods could be rejected and enhanced in the absence of reliable evidence, and whether the consequential confiscation and penalty could stand.

Analysis: The Tribunal found that the lower appellate authority had no material on record to reject the declared transaction value. The proposed enhancement based on contemporaneous ship stores imports and overseas retail price lists was not accepted as a legally sufficient basis for re-determining value. In the absence of misdeclaration of value, the confiscation ordered under the Customs Act and the penalty imposed were consequential to the valuation dispute and could not survive.

Conclusion: The declared value was rightly accepted, and the confiscation and penalty were correctly set aside.

Ratio Decidendi: Declared transaction value cannot be rejected or enhanced unless supported by cogent evidence, and consequential confiscation and penalty cannot be sustained when misdeclaration is not established.

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