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2024 (1) TMI 194
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....ngalore (hereinafter referred as DRI) received an information that the appellants were importing Ubiquity Access Points/MIMO products (products having Multiple Input / Multiple Output Technology) and are wrongly claiming Basic Customs Duty (hereinafter referred as BCD) exemption under Notification No. 24/2005-Cus. dated 01.03.2005 as was amended vide subsequent notification and thereby are evading payment of appropriate customs duties. As per the amended Notification No. 11/2014Cus., following products falling under CTH 8517 were not exempted from BCD payment: (i) soft switches and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) equipment, namely, VoIP phones, media gateways, gateway controllers and session border controllers; (ii) optical transport equipments, combination of one or more of Packet Optical Transport Product or Switch (POTP or POTS), Optical Transport Network (OTN) products, and IP Radios; (iii) Carrier Ethernet Switch, Packet Transport Node (PTN) products, Multiprotocol Label Switching-Transport Profile (MPLS-TP) products; (iv) Multiple Input / Multiple Output (MIMO) and Long Term Evolution (LTE) Products. All the above products are telecommunication or Informati....
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....g MIMO technology and products working on LTE standards are different, however the MIMO technology can be a subset technology in LTE products Since MIMO technology can be adopted in LTE standards, some features may be similar in both. 1.3 Department formed the opinion that as per the notification, the products of MIMO technology whether or not those products have LTE technology and the LTE technology products whether or not those have MIMO technology, are not eligible for duty exemption. Both these kind of products were excluded from the scope of exemption from payment of duty given to the products/goods of Chapter heading 8517. With these observations Show Cause Notice No. 38/2018 dated 08.10.2018 was served upon the appellants alleging that the products imported by the appellants fall under the exclusion to exemption of duty. Resultantly, the following total amount of duty was proposed to be recovered from the appellants along with interest and the proportional penalties: Name of the place of import Value of the imported APs (Rs.) Differential Duty payable (Rs.) ICD, Tuglakabad, New Delhi 411608582 48488057 Customs ACC, New Delhi 23053375 ....
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....of products/equipment covered, implies that not only the products listed there will be covered but all products which have MIMO technology will also be covered under the said clause. It is evident from the technical specifications of the Access Points imported by M/s. Go IP Global Services and the admissions made by the personnel of M/s. Go IP Global Services that, the Access Points imported by them are only MIMO products as they support 802.11n/802.11ac standards specified in IEEE which is specifically for MIMO/MU-MIMO products. Therefore, these products will be covered under clause (h). The Importer is misrepresenting the clause (e) of Annexure 1 of the Circular 08/2023 wherein it is mentioned that Wi-Fi Access Point Equipment will be covered under the category Internet Protocol Radios to misguide the Tribunal despite having submitted during investigation that said devices are MIMO technology products. 3.2 It is submitted that Board has also accepted about the impugned goods be MIMO only and not LTE products. The claim of the Respondent appears to stem from a misinterpretation of the Board's Circular. The products covered under clause (e) "Internet Protocol (IP) Radios" ar....
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....tworking device used for wireless communication within the LAN and extending the LAN. It helps in connecting wireless enabled devices such as laptops, smart phones, tablets and other network products at remote places to a wired network. It is different from products having LTE technology. 4.1 During the course of adjudication the respondents sought cross-examination of Shri Adesh Vashisht, Shri Brijesh Shah and Shri Raj Malik. Cross-examination was also sought of Shri Anoop Kumar Kujur, SIO, DRI, who had conducted the investigation including recording of statements. The request for crossexamination was allowed by ADG (Adj.), DRI, New Delhi, the adjudicating authority. Shri Adesh Vashisht and Shri Brijesh Shah were cross-examined on 04.04.19 but the other two persons did not appear despite being summoned twice by the adjudicating authority. The respondents furnished a reply dated 31.05.2019 to the show cause notice and raised a number of issues before the adjudicating authority on classification, eligibility to the exemption notification as also of time bar. Technical opinion from an expert was also filed before the adjudicating authority to substantiate the claim that the import....
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....s. dated 30.06.2017, 38/2018-Cus. dated 02.04.2018, 76/2018-Cus. dated 11.10.2018, 36/2019-Cus. datd 30.12.2019, 5/2021-Cus. dated 01.02.2021 and 57/2021-Cus. dated 29.12.2021. Hence the question to be adjudicated is: "Whether the exclusion from duty exemption clause of the said notification, as amended, also covers products having only MIMO technology and not working on LTE standard and vice-versa or just the products having both the technologies? 5.3 To decide the same, we observe that the Central Government, by the said notification, exempted the goods described in column (3) of the Table when imported into India, from the whole of the duty of customs leviable thereon. Serial No. 13 of heading 8517 exempts all goods, except those mentioned in (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv). Ingram Micro had claimed exemption under Serial No. 13 (iv) which is: "(iv) Multiple Input/Multiple Output (MIMO) and Long Term Evolution (LTE) Products." 5.4 A bare perusal of the exclusion clause (iv) under Sl. No. 13 of notification shows that it covers MIMO and LTE products. Said exclusion Clause uses the conjunction 'and' and, therefore, it can be urged that the scope of clause (iv) ca....
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....e understood keeping in mind the intention with which it was drafted. The judges should give that interpretation to the law which gives effect to the intention of the legislature. In Tirath Singh v. Bachittar Singh, 1955 SCR (2) 457 the court stated that if the language of the statute leads to absurdity or injustice then a construction may be put upon it which modifies the meaning of the words used in the statute. The most fair and rational method for interpreting a statute is by exploring the intention of the legislature through texts, the subject matter, the effect and consequences or the spirit and reason of law. If it doesn't work than process of construction is to be employed. Construction, in strict sense, is the process by which the court assign the meaning to the ambiguous provision which is beyond the letter of law for the purpose to resolve the inconsistency. The judges after taking into consideration the factual circumstances before the court give a particular meaning to the expression or word or phrase in question. Although, such meaning must be within the ambit of the objective of statute and could not be directly explained by the statute. Th....
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.... 'or' mean either one of the two things. 5.8 The meaning of word 'and' has also been considered by Hon'ble High Court of Punjab & Haryana in the case of Commissioner of Central Excise, Panchkula Vs. Kulcip Medicines (P) Ltd. reported as 2009 (14) S.T.R 608 (P&H), wherein it was observed as follows: "11. The question which falls for consideration is whether word 'and' used after the word 'clearing' but before the word 'forwarding' at two places in clause (j) be considered in a conjunctive sense or disinjunctive sense. It appears to be fairly well settled that 17 C/51093/2020 the context and intention of legislature are the guiding principles. In that regard reliance may be placed on the judgment of Hon'ble the Supreme Court in the case of Mazagaon Dock Ltd. v. CIT (1958) 34 ITR 368. By necessary intendment the expression 'a clearing and forwarding agent in relation to clearing and forwarding operations, in any manner' contemplates only one person rendering service as 'clearing and forwarding agent' in relation to 'clearing and forwarding operations'. To say that if, one person has rendered service as 'forwarding agent' without rendering any service as 'clearing ag....