2016 (11) TMI 172

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....175 dated 24th November 1999 as per contract no. 800120. 2. The proper officer of customs disregarded the declared price of US $ 7055 per MT and enhanced it to US $ 8420 per MT. The adjudication order, issued following waiver of show cause notice and personal hearing, adopted the London Metal Exchange price on date of shipment with the addition of a premium. The claim of importer that the contract based on the London Metal Exchange price as on 8th October 1999 being the price payable should be adopted for assessment was not accepted on the ground that contract between shipper and importer had been held to be irrelevant by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Rajkumar Knitting Mills (P) Ltd v. Collector of Customs, Bombay [1998 (98) ELT 292 (SC)] a....

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....ars Ltd v. Commissioner of Customs, Visakhapatnam [2006 (193) ELT 68 (Tri. Bang.)], Agarwal Industries v. Commissioner of Customs, Pune [2008 (193) ELT 421 (Tri.-Bang.)] and DEI Ltd v. Collector of Customs, Madras [2000 (122) ELT 21 (Mad.)]. 4. Learned Authorised Representative reiterated the findings in the impugned order. 5. We note that the first appellate authority has endorsed the principal finding of the lower authority that the decision in re Rajkumar Knitting Mills (P) Ltd required the contract value to be disregarded and a new value to be determined. It is seen that the said judgment accepted the adoption of value of similar goods imported around the same time for enhancing the assessable value as being more compliant with the ex....

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....enced and value revised. If that were to be, there is no rationale for enabling the framing of Rules in section 14 of Customs Act, 1962. Resort to the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court for enhancement by the two lower authorities is, for that reason itself, not tenable. 7. On going through the judgment in re Rajkumar Knitting Mills (P) Ltd, we also note that the consignments were imported in 27th July 1988. The Customs Valuation (Determination of Imported Goods) Rules 1988 came into force on 16th August 1988 by notification no. 51/88-Cus (NT) dated 18th July 1988. The approval by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of the enhancement undertaken by Revenue and upheld by this Tribunal in re Rajkumar Knitting Mills (P) Ltd is for imports covered by....

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....the purpose of assessment to customs duty is the price actually paid for the particular transaction, unless of course the price is unacceptable for the reasons set out in Rule 4(2). 'Payable' in the context of the language of Rule 4(1) must, therefore, be read as referring to 'the particular transaction' and payability in respect of the transaction envisages a situation where payment of price may be deferred. 14.It is only when the transaction value under Rule 4 is rejected, then under Rule 3(ii) the value shall be determined by proceeding sequentially through Rules 5 to 8 of the Rules. Conversely if the transaction value can be determined under Rule 4(1) and does not fall under any of the exceptions in Rule 4(2), there is no question of d....