Substantial compliance in import inspection certificate upheld; confiscation and penalties set aside where later inspection found no objectionable material.

A procedural defect in a pre-shipment inspection certificate did not, by itself, justify confiscation or penalty under Customs law where the import condition was substantially complied with and a later inspection found no prohibited or objectionable material. The Tribunal treated the fact that the certifying agency was not authorised for the place of inspection as a curable lapse, not as proof that the metallic scrap was prohibited goods. Confiscation, redemption fine, and penalties were therefore unsustainable and were set aside.

---

---

Issues: Whether the import of metallic scrap was liable to confiscation and penalty on the ground that the pre-shipment inspection certificate was issued by an agency not authorised for the place of inspection, and whether subsequent post-shipment inspection and absence of objectionable material saved the goods from being treated as prohibited goods.

Analysis: The goods had been inspected by a DGFT-empanelled agency, but the certificate was questioned because the agency was not authorised for Guyana. The Tribunal noted that the foreign trade policy did not prohibit post-shipment inspection and that the later inspection by the local approved agency did not reveal any war material or other objectionable material. Relying on the settled view that non-compliance with an import-condition may call for inspection but does not by itself amount to improper import warranting confiscation, the Tribunal treated the lapse as substantial compliance rather than a prohibition attracting confiscation under the Customs Act.

Conclusion: The confiscation of the goods, redemption fine, and penalties were held unsustainable and were set aside.

Final Conclusion: The appeal succeeded, and the import was not liable to confiscation or penal consequences in the facts proved before the Tribunal.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the import condition is substantially complied with and subsequent inspection shows no prohibited or objectionable material, a procedural defect in the pre-shipment certificate does not, by itself, justify confiscation or penalty under the Customs law.

---