Admissibility of retracted statements recorded during...

Admissibility of retracted statements recorded during investigation cannot alone support enhancement of assessable value where they were restored without cross examination or independent corroboration; reliance on such statements to raise value was held unsustainable, and the enhancement was set aside. Valuation by reference to annexed import entries was invalidated because those imports were not shown to be contemporaneous, identical or demonstrably comparable, yet a uniform 25% uplift was applied without analysis, rendering the differential duty demand arbitrary and quashed. Penalties against an intermediary were annulled where a co intermediary's penalty for the same transactions had been dropped and attained finality, making disparate penalty confirmation unsupportable.

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