Customs Act | Excel Sheet Recovered From Assessee's Email Can Be Relied Upon For Valuation Even Without S.138C Certificate: CESTAT

The New Delhi Bench of Customs, Excise, and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) has held that an Excel sheet recovered from the email account of the assessee can be relied upon to determine the value of imported goods, even without a certificate under Section 138C of the Customs Act, 1962. Section 138C of the Customs Act, 1962 would apply if the information is printed from a computer, and the certificate should certify that the computer was being used for the purpose of business during the relevant period. The bench opined that Section 138C applies only when the document is printed or produced from a computer other than that of the assessee. Justice Dilip Gupta (President) and P.V. Subba Rao (Technical Member) were addressing the issue of whether the Excel sheet recovered from the assessee's email account can be relied upon to determine the value of imported goods, even without a certificate under section 138C of the Customs Act, 1962. In this case, the assessee/appellant is a proprietorship firm of Nitin Khandelwal. During the investigation, it emerged that apart from imports by Wide Impex, there were also invoices pertaining to consignments imported by Royal Blankets (owned by Nitin) in the Excel sheet in Nitin's email. This led to the investigation against the assessee. A show cause notice was issued to the assessee proposing to reject the transaction value in 23 Bills of Entry filed by the assessee under Rule 12 of Customs Valuation (Determination of value of imported goods) Rules, 2007. The Commissioner found that the declared transaction values in respect of the Bills of Entry were liable to be rejected under Valuation Rule 12. The prices indicated in the Excel sheets were taken by the Commissioner as FOB prices and not as CIF prices. Thus, the Commissioner confirmed the demand of differential customs duty of Rs. 1,85,84,364/- under section 28(4) of the Act with interest. As per the assessee, the entire case is based on unsigned, unstamped Excel Sheets recovered from the email of the proprietor. The Excel sheet on which the SCN and the impugned order relied was not accompanied by a certificate in section 138C of the Act, and hence it cannot be relied upon. The revenue submitted that during the investigation, Nitin opened his email using his password in the office of SIIB and from that produced copies of invoices and also Excel sheets showing the correct values and the undervalued prices. He took a print of the Excel sheets when his statement was recorded and signed it. This Excel sheet formed the basis for further investigation. The Tribunal noted that the Excel sheet was printed in the office of the SIIB using the computer and printer in that office, but the Excel sheet was not in that computer. It was also not in any computer in the office or residence of Nitin. The Excel sheet was in Nitin's Gmail. In other words, it was in some server of Gmail cloud. The officers clearly could not have issued a certificate regarding the servers of Gmail. The bench opined that the only person who would have known if that particular email ID was used during the relevant period to conduct business or not is the one who owns the Gmail ID………That person was Nitin, and he not only explained in his statement but also gave his and the exporter's email IDs and further opened his own Gmail account using his user ID and password, which he alone knew and printed out the Excel sheet. He also explained the Excel sheet in his statement. Therefore, there is no force in this submission of the counsel that no certificate in section 138C was produced. In respect of the remaining Bills of Entry, the values found in the Excel sheet must be considered as CIF values instead of as FOB values in the absence of any evidence to support that they were FOB values. Consequently, the assessable value and duty must be re-determined, stated the Tribunal. The bench set aside the demand for anti-dumping duty of Rs. 79,947/-. In view of the above, the Tribunal partly allowed the appeal and upheld the penalty imposed on the assessee under Section 114AA. Case Title: Royal Blankets v. Principal Commissioner, Customs Case Number: CUSTOMS APPEAL NO. 51721 OF 2021 Counsel for Appellant/Assessee: Shri Gurdeep Singh and Shri Jaideep Ahuja Counsel for Respondent/ Department: Shri Nikhil Mohan Goyal Click Here To Read/Download The Order

Customs Act | Excel Sheet Recovered From Assessee's Email Can Be Relied Upon For Valuation Even Without S.138C Certificate: CESTAT

Mehak Dhiman

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