TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2016 (2) TMI 861
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.... whereby anti-dumping duty has been imposed on Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) on imports from Thailand and Korea. This was pursuant to the final finding dated 07.04.2015 rendered by the designated authority under the Customs Tariff Act, 1975. 2. Several issues were sought to be raised in the petition. However, the issues can be bifurcated into two categories. One which deals with the merits of the matter and the other which deals with the aspect of retrospectivity of the imposition of the anti-dumping duty. 3. Insofar as the first aspect is concerned, we feel that the petitioners ought to have filed an appeal under Section 9C of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975. But as they were pursuing this writ petition, we are granting liberty to them t....
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....n with regard to Rule 20 and, particularly, Rule 20(2)(a) of the Customs Tariff (Identification, Assessment and Collection of Anti-Dumping Duty on Dumped Articles and for Determination of Injury) Rules, 1995. The Supreme Court observed as under:- "34. This brings us to Rule 20, the correct construction of which is determinative of the question raised in these appeals. The first thing to notice about Rule 20 is, as its marginal note states, that it is concerned only with the date of commencement of duty. Once this is appreciated, it becomes clear that its focus is only on when anti-dumping duties are to commence. In Sub-rule (1), it speaks of anti-dumping duties levied Under Rule 13 and Rule 19, and states that they shall take effect only ....
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....od exceeding 6 months (on facts in these cases, such period has not in fact been extended beyond 6 months). Thus, it is clear that all that Sub-rule (2)(a) does is to enable the levy of a final anti-dumping duty from the date of imposition of a provisional duty so as to convert the provisional measure into a final measure, or so as to take within its ken the provisional anti-dumping duty already imposed. This aspect is succinctly put by "A Handbook on Anti-Dumping Investigations" by Judith Czako, Johann Human and Jorge Miranda. The learned authors state: "L. RETROACTIVE COLLECTION OF DEFINITIVE DUTIES The normal rule for application of definitive duties, set out in Article 10.1 of the AD Agreement, is that duties shall only be collect....
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....hat Clause 10.2 of the WTO Agreement is reproduced in the same sense though not in the same form in Sub-rule (2)(a). The same result therefore as is envisaged in Clause 10.2 is achieved by the said construction-that is anti-dumping duty may be levied retroactively for the period for which provisional measures have been applied. The said construction is in consonance with the principles already laid down earlier in this judgment in that the WTO Agreement is intended to be applied by the various signatory nations in a uniform manner. This can only be done by construing the language of Section 9A read with the Rules in the same sense as that of the WTO Agreement. 37. At this juncture, it is interesting to note that a number of member countr....
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....The amount of the anti-dumping duty shall not exceed the margin of dumping established but it should be less than the margin if such lesser duty would be adequate to remove the injury to the Community industry." 38. It will be seen from this that an inflexible rule is laid down that would ensure that no "gap" or intervening period occurs between the expiry of the provisional duty and the imposition of the final duty, inasmuch as a proposal to levy final duty has to be submitted no later than one month before the expiry of a provisional duty. 39. However, interestingly enough, in the United States Manual dealing with anti-dumping duties, the following is the statement of law: "Therefore, a period of time, known sometimes as the "gap....