Preferential customs benefit cannot be denied for missing third-party invoicing details when origin is otherwise established

Concessional customs duty under the India-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement cannot be denied merely because the Certificate of Origin does not separately mention third-country or third-party invoicing, where the governing Rules of Origin require a valid certificate from the designated authority and impose no such specific disclosure requirement. The note explains that, if the goods are otherwise shown to satisfy the origin conditions and the certificate is genuine, the absence of an invoice endorsement is a hyper-technical objection and does not defeat the preferential benefit. CBIC guidance and the scheme of the notification support this reading.

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Issues: Whether denial of concessional basic customs duty under Notification No. 26/2000-Customs dated 01.03.2000 read with Notification No. 19/2000-Customs (N.T.) dated 01.03.2000 was sustainable merely because the Certificate of Origin did not contain separate particulars of third-country or third-party invoicing.

Analysis: The concessional notification granted benefit to specified goods, including the imported goods in List-5, subject to production of proof that the goods were of Sri Lankan origin in accordance with the prescribed Rules of Origin. The governing origin rules required a valid Certificate of Origin issued by the designated authority and did not prescribe any separate column for third-party invoicing details in the certificate. The Tribunal found that the dispute was not about classification, coverage, or the genuineness of the certificate-issuing authority, but only about the absence of a specific endorsement on invoicing. It held that such absence could not be treated as a legal ground to deny the ISFTA benefit, particularly when the materials showed that the goods satisfied the origin requirements and the imported goods were treated as originating from Sri Lanka. The Tribunal also relied on CBIC guidance and the principle that invoice origin does not by itself determine origin status where the rules are silent, and held that the departmental objection was hyper-technical and unsupported by the scheme of the notification and the origin rules.

Conclusion: The denial of concessional duty solely on the ground of third-party invoicing was not sustainable, and the exemption benefit was held admissible to the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the applicable preferential notification and rules of origin require proof of origin through a valid Certificate of Origin but do not prescribe a separate requirement to disclose third-party invoicing particulars, the customs benefit cannot be denied on that ground alone if origin is otherwise established.

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