TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (9) TMI 1610
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....uspicion that the imported Rivets might be made of silver, a sample was drawn and referred to the Appraiser, Jewellery Expert, who opined that the item was made of silver with a silver content of 99.116 per cent and recommended classification under Chapter Heading 7114. The appellant is stated to have expressed urgency, citing that production had been held up, and requested adjudication of the matter without issuance of a show cause notice or a personal hearing. The Adjudicating Authority passed Order in Original No.306/2016 dated 22.04.2016 classifying the goods under CTI 71141120, attracting Basic Customs Duty at 15 per cent, confiscated the goods under Section 111(m) of the Customs Act, 1962 (Act), allowed redemption of the goods under Section 125(1) of the Act on payment of a fine of Rs.50,000/-, and imposed a penalty of Rs.40,000 under Section 112(a) of the Act. 4. The appeal preferred by the appellant against Order in Original No.306/2016 was rejected vide Order in Appeal C.Cus.I No.310/2016 dated 27.09.2016, the Commissioner (Appeals) holding that having waived the right to a show cause notice and a personal hearing, the appellant could not thereafter challenge the depart....
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....or electrical goods, or parts thereof, of Section XVI. He drew attention to Heading 71.14, covering articles of goldsmiths' or silversmiths' wares and parts thereof, of precious metal or of metal clad with precious metal, and to Heading 71.15, covering other articles of precious metal, and submitted that Explanatory Note (d) to Heading 71.15 of the HSN excludes machinery, mechanical appliances, electrical goods and identifiable parts thereof falling under Section XVI, expressly including electrical contacts. He argued that the impugned goods, being composite goods in which silver is present only for conductivity, derive their essential character from their function as electrical contacts, and that the mere presence of silver cannot govern classification in the absence of any exclusion under Chapter 85. 8. Placing reliance on the decision of the coordinate Bench in Collector of Central Excise, Surat v. Modison Metals Pvt. Ltd., 2000 (116) E.L.T. 535 (Tribunal), Ld. Counsel submitted that silver alloy and other metal contacts used for switching, protecting circuits or making connections have consistently been held to be parts under Heading 85.38, and not articles of the base metal....
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.... any reassessment by the department, no appealable order existed. We are of the firm opinion that this view cannot survive in the light of the law declared by a three Judge Bench of the Supreme Court in ITC Ltd. v. Commissioner of Central Excise, Kolkata-IV, 2019 (368) E.L.T. 216 (S.C.). Rejecting the identical contention, the Hon'ble Court held that a self assessed bill of entry is nonetheless an order of assessment within the meaning of Section 2(2) of the Act and is therefore appealable at the instance of any person aggrieved, whether the assessee or the Revenue. It was further held that it is not only an order of reassessment that is appealable, but that Section 128 makes appealable any decision or order under the Act, including that of self assessment, and that the absence of a lis or of a speaking order does not stand in the way of such an appeal. This position has since been consistently followed, including by the Kolkata Bench of this Tribunal in S K Timber and Company v. Commissioner of Customs (Port), Kolkata, 2021 (6) TMI 170 - CESTAT KOLKATA, where it was held, applying ITC Ltd., that neither the assessee nor the Revenue can bypass a self assessed order by proceeding di....
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.... in Vikas Spinners v. Commissioner of Customs, Lucknow, 2001 (128) E.L.T. 143 (Tri.-Del.), which held an importer estopped from resiling from an enhanced value that it had voluntarily accepted and paid duty upon without protest. That decision concerned acceptance of a loaded value for the purpose of assessment, a matter of fact voluntarily conceded by the importer at the relevant time. It furnishes no support for the distinct proposition that a request for expedited adjudication, made by waiving the procedural safeguards of notice and hearing under Section 124 of the Act, also extinguishes the independent statutory right of appeal conferred by Section 128. The two rights operate at different stages and serve different purposes. A waiver of that procedural safeguard at the adjudication stage cannot, without more, be read as an implied surrender of the right of appeal against the order that follows, a right conferred by Section 128 on any person aggrieved by a decision or order, without qualification as to whether that person had earlier sought an expedited hearing. 16. We are reinforced in this view by two further considerations. First, the Board itself, by Circular No.290/6/97-C....
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....goods fell within the tariff item invoked was upon the Revenue and would remain undischarged in the absence of any evidence led by it. This principle has since been reiterated as recently as 25.02.2026 by the Supreme Court in Hamdard (Wakf) Laboratories v. Commissioner, Commercial Tax, U.P., 2026 INSC 195, which, again following Hindustan Ferodo Ltd. and HPL Chemicals Ltd., held that where the Revenue seeks to displace the classification claimed by an assessee, the onus rests squarely upon it, and that reliance on regulatory material or nomenclature, without cogent and objective evidence, does not discharge that onus. A Larger Bench of this Tribunal has taken the same view in Brindavan Beverages Pvt. Ltd. v. Commissioner of Customs, Central Excise and Service Tax, Meerut, 2019 (29) G.S.T.L. 418 (Tri.-LB), holding, upon a review of Hindustan Ferodo Ltd. and Union of India v. Garware Nylons Ltd., 1996 (87) E.L.T. 12 (S.C.), that the burden of proof is on the taxing authority to show that the goods are taxable in the manner it claims, that mere assertion is of no avail, and that a heavy burden lies upon the Revenue to disprove, by adducing proper evidence, the material relied upon by ....
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....ut on whether they are, in their condition as imported, identifiable as parts of machinery, mechanical appliances and electrical goods of Section XVI, with electrical contacts cited as one such example. 19. On that question, the material on record is one sided. The Rivet Mobile Contact is manufactured to the appellant's own drawing reference per dwg No.356504501/02, is not of a standard type usable for any other purpose, and is supplied by Rielka, France to that specification, as shown by the foreign supplier's invoice on record. On import, it is assembled with a phosphor bronze component and a brass component into the Moving Contact, which the appellant supplies to Schneider as a part of connectors, switches and relays, as shown by the appellant's own invoice to Schneider on record. This evidence of dedicated design and end use has not been controverted by the Revenue at any stage. Nor does the silver content relied upon by the Revenue alter this position. Classification of a composite article follows the component that gives it its essential character, and not the ingredient that merely predominates by quantity, if that ingredient performs only a facilitating role; see Hamdard....