Certificate of origin governs preferential tariff treatment unless customs follows the prescribed consultation process and displaces it with reliable evidence.

Preferential tariff treatment under the ASEAN notification was protected by the certificate of origin issued by the exporting country's designated authority, and customs could not deny the exemption on the basis of an inconclusive laboratory report alone. Where doubt arose about the certificate or goods description, the prescribed consultation procedure with the issuing authority had to be followed before rejection. Because that mechanism was not used and the test material was unclear and internally inconsistent, the certificate was not displaced. The denial of exemption was therefore unsustainable, and the linked demand, interest, penalty, and confiscation could not be upheld.

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Issues: Whether exemption under the ASEAN preferential notification could be denied on the basis of a customs laboratory report when the certificate of origin issued by the exporting country's designated authority described the goods as roasted cashew kernel and the prescribed procedure for doubting that certificate was not followed.

Analysis: The governing notification and the operational certification procedure require a certificate of origin issued by the designated authority of the exporting party to be accepted for preferential tariff treatment. If customs has a doubt about the certificate or the description of the goods, the matter must be resolved in consultation with the issuing authority. On the record, the certificate of origin described the goods as roasted cashew kernel, but the customs authorities did not adopt the prescribed consultation mechanism. The laboratory material relied upon by the department was found to be unclear and internally inconsistent, and it did not conclusively displace the certificate of origin or establish a reliable basis to deny the exemption.

Conclusion: The denial of exemption was unsustainable, and the demand, interest, penalty, and confiscation based on that denial could not be upheld.

Ratio Decidendi: A certificate of origin issued by the designated authority of the exporting country must be accepted for preferential tariff treatment unless doubt about it is resolved through the procedure prescribed under the relevant operational certification rules, and an inconclusive test report cannot by itself justify denial of the exemption.

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