9911796707
TMI Blog1989 (1) TMI 226X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e guilty under section 111 (m) of the Customs Act, 1962 for having under-declared the value of the goods at 2190.00 per Metric Tonne. Acting under Rule 8 of the Customs Valuation Rules, 1963 (best judgment assessment rule) the Collector re-assessed the value of the goods on the basis of costing at 9,439.88 per Metric Tonne. The Collector ordered confiscation of the goods under the same Section and adjudged the fine in lieu of confiscation at Rs. 5 lakhs. In addition, the Collector imposed a penalty of Rs. 1 lakh on the appellants under Section 112 of the Act. The appellants are in appeal against this order. 2. When the matter came up before us First on 8-9-1988, we noticed that though the goods were made of very costly metals, there i ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... made of Nickel and Chromium both of which are very costly non-ferrous metals. When the present consignment arrived in India and the appellants filed their Bill of Entry, value declaration and the import invoice, the Customs authorities had before them two earlier instances of import of similar goods. The prices in those two cases were found to be 10 to 13 times higher even after making allowance for the difference in the exchange rate parity between US $ and British. In one case the c.i.f. prices declared were US $ 33,968.08 per Metric Tonne and in the other case they were US $ 20,292.75 per Metric Tonne. The quantities imported in those two cases were no doubt, small, 150 kgs. in the first case and 70 kgs. in the other case, as compared t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ured from scrap. We find that the Collector was more than fair in the various ingredients of valuation, including the manufacturing cost, which he adopted. The second plea of the appellants is that their goods were a stock-lot and so there should be a 50% reduction in prices. We find that this too is an unsubstantiated contention. The import invoice does not show that the goods supplied were a stock-lot. Though the order placed by the appellants talks of random lengths , we find that it was really not so. The order was for specific sizes and against each size and specification a fixed quantity, in round figures, had been ordered. We do not agree that the goods were a stock-lot. We may add it here that looking to the very costly metals of w ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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