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Regarding applicability of exemption notification
Circular No. 9 dated 13th
February 1996
Representations
have been received by the Board that benefit of certain exemption notification
are being denied by the Customs Houses/ Commissionerate on the ground that the
goods, while being covered by the description specified under the
notification, do not fall in the Chapters/ Heading/ Subheading Nos. (herein
after referred to as Tariff references) mentioned in the notification. In this
regard it may be stated that exemption notifications where Tariff references and
the description of goods may not entirely match, can broadly be grouped into two
categories, namely:
(i) Notifications in
which the goods described are such as can never fall under the corresponding
Tariff references specifiedtherein. This
may happen not only in those cases where the exempted articles are classifiable
under a single Chapter/ Heading/ Sub-heading, but also in those cases where the
goods are classifiable under more than one heading (like incases where goods are
described as a broad class - "parts of gas discharge tube").
(ii)
Notification which cover goods classifiable under more than one Chapter/
Heading/ Sub-heading and only one or someand not all the tariff
references have been mentioned. For example, parts of 'gas discharged tube',
depending on its nature,are classifiable under Chapter 70,73, or 85.
However, in terms of Sr. No. 24 of List A, annexed to notification 64/ 95 Cus,dated
16.3.95., only such parts which are falling under chapter 85 have been exempted.
2. In respect of the
notifications discussed under category (i) above, if the goods are squarely
covered by the description but not by the chapter/ heading Nos. and the
specified tariff references could never be linked to goods as they are
described, then it could only be case of mention of incorrect Chapter No./
Heading No./ or Sub-heading No. and may be due to inadvertence and therefore
should not be a basis of the denial of exemption. In this regard, your attention
is also invited to Board's Circular No. 60/ 95 dated 5th June 1995 issued from
F.No. 354/ 31/ 95-TRU, in the context of applicability of Sr. No. (ix) of
Notifn. No. 28/ 94-Customs dated 1st March 1994 to 'Ovaprim' imported prior to
16.3.1995. Vide the aforesaid circular it has been clarified that in view of the
law laid down by the Supreme Court in matter of Jain Engineering v. Collector of
Customs [1987 (32) E.L.T. 3 S.C.] concessional rate of Customs duty was
available to Ovaprim even though it was classifiable in a Chapter other than
that mentioned in the Notifn. No 28/ 94-Customs.
3. This
clarification is equally applicable in all such cases and it is reiterated that
the benefit of exemption will be available to these goods even though the
articles mentioned in the notification are not covered by the Chapters/ headings
Nos./ Sub-heading Nos. mentioned in the notifications.
4. This, however,
will not be the case in respect of the notifications mentioned under category
(ii) above, where among the various tariff references that may be attracted by
the broad description of the goods in the notification, only one or few tariff
references have been mentioned. In such cases mention of duty selected tariff
headings/ references should be treated as deliberate restriction of the scope of
the exemption. Accordingly, the exemption should be restricted only to those
goods, which would fall under the tariff references specified in the
notification.
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