2025 (9) TMI 342

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....0.2013 passed by the Assistant Commissioner. 2. We have heard learned counsel for the appellant and the learned authorized representative for the Revenue and perused the records. The undisputed facts of the case are that the appellant imported Manganese Ore from Zambia and filed 11 Bills of Entry during March to July 2011 to clear the consignment. Suspecting the goods were manganese concentrate and not manganese ore, the Bills of Entry were initially assessed provisionally. They were then finalized holding that the imported goods were manganese concentrate and consequently demanding Additional Duty of Customs. 3. Aggrieved, the appellant filed appeals against the assessment of the Bills of Entry before the Commissioner (Appeals) who u....

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....hed. v. Presuming that the goods were also ground, the Assistant Commissioner, applying the HSN General Note to Chapter 26, held that physical or physico-chemical operations including crushing, grinding, magnetic separation, gravimetric separations, flotation, screening, grading, agglomeration of powers in grains, balls or briquettes, whether or not with the addition of small quantities of binders, drying, calcinations, roasting to oxidize, reduce or magnetize the ore, etc. would render the goods liable to classification as concentrates. vi. He, therefore, held that the goods imported by the appellant were manganese concentrate. vii. The issue is already covered in favour of the appellant in the remaining 10 Bills....

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....is recorded in paragraph 4 of the impugned order that "no substantial/proper /sufficient clarification /documentary evidence is available specifying the processes that have been undertaken during the mining operations and before the shipment of the goods from the supplying country, except a copy of document indicating that the process of washing the ore was done". 7. The undisputed legal position is that as per HSN, physical or physico-chemical operations including crushing, grinding, magnetic separation, gravimetric separations, flotation, screening, grading, agglomeration of powers in grains, balls or briquettes, whether or not with the addition of small quantities of binders, drying, calcinations, roasting to oxidize, reduce or magnet....

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....ation, gravimetric separations, flotation, screening, grading, agglomeration of powers in grains, balls or briquettes, whether or not with the addition of small quantities of binders, drying, calcinations, roasting to oxidize, reduce or magnetize the ore, etc. would render the goods liable to classification as concentrates; ii. the admitted position that the goods were washed; and iii. the presumption that it was ground before being exported. 10. It is a well settled legal position that he who asserts has to prove. The assertion that the goods were ground is a presumption by the department admittedly without any evidence. It did not even send the samples to test for any expert opinion if it was ground. The entire relian....