The Delhi High Court has sought the stand of Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) on a plea for resolving the issue of alleged mis-classification of betel nuts for the purpose of customs duty.
The petitioner, a customs house agent, claimed the ambiguity on whether betel nuts would attract 100 per cent or 50 per cent basic customs duty has allegedly resulted in large-scale mis-classification, enabling duty evasion and causing significant financial harm to the government.
The court was informed by the petitioner’s advocate that complaints have also been filed with the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and other higher government authorities for action to be taken against the officers who are allegedly engaging in large scale duty evasion on the basis of this ambiguity in spite the clarification provided by the Supreme Court.
A bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Dharmesh Sharma noted that despite advance copies of petition being served to the authorities, their counsel have not been given any instructions.
The court granted time to the counsel for the respondents to take instructions in the matter and listed it for further hearing on February 27.
The court said if no decision has already been taken on the complaints, it should be taken on an “early date”.
Advocate Kamini Lau, representing petitioner Bajrang Lal Sharma, said the issue has created enormous difficulties for customs house agents like the petitioner as no decision has been taken despite repeated complaints against the senior officials.
The plea said the petitioner, along with several customs house agents, are facing repeated harassment from a group of customs officers, even as the National Customs Targeting Centre (NCTC) received multiple complaints regarding the alleged mis-declaration and mis-classification of imported betel nuts under various names such as “boiled supari, API supari, chikni supari, and flavoured supari”, being wrongly classified.
It claimed this mis-classification allowed importers to evade the 100 per cent basic customs duty (BCD) by paying only 50 per cent, and also bypass the Minimum Import Price conditions set by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade.
The plea said the petitioner submitted a complaint to the CVC in March 2022, seeking urgent intervention against senior custom officer for his alleged involvement in duty evasion in collusion with others as the ongoing clearance of goods through mis-classification was causing significant revenue loss.
However, the respondent departments failed to take any effective action, thereby allowing the duty evasion scam to continue unchecked, it claimed.
The petition has arrayed the Centre through Ministry of Finance, CBIC, CVC and the Directorate General of Vigilance, Customs and Central Excise as respondents.
