Classification, valuation, origin and clearance, and everything that follows when a consignment or a past import is questioned. Advisory before the entry is filed, and dispute work through to the Tribunal at Ahmedabad.
Which heading a product falls under decides the rate, the licensing condition, and often the exemption. Most classification disputes are decided on the description, the technical literature and the general rules, and they are won or lost long before the Tribunal.
Where the buyer and the seller are related, the transaction value is examined by the Special Valuation Branch. That reference is a long process and the file you build at the start decides how it ends.
A preferential rate claimed under a trade agreement can be re-opened years later. The verification regime places the burden on the importer to hold the information behind the certificate.
Faceless assessment moved the officer away from the port and made the written record the whole conversation. What is uploaded and how it reads now decides the assessment.
A held consignment costs money daily, and that pressure is what produces bad concessions. The right move is usually provisional release while the merits are argued separately.
A demand under Section 28 turns first on the period, and only then on the merits. The extended period has to be pleaded and made out, and very often it is not.
A demand outside the period does not survive, whatever it says. These are the ordinary periods under the Act.
| What | How long | From | Provision |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notice for duty short levied, ordinary case | Two years | The relevant date | Section 28(1) |
| Notice where suppression is alleged | Five years | The relevant date | Section 28(4) |
| Order after a notice, ordinary case | Six months, extendable by six | Date of the notice | Section 28(9) |
| Notice after a seizure | Six months, extendable by six | Date of seizure | Section 110(2) |
| Refund claim | One year | Date of payment of duty | Section 27(1) |
| Appeal to the Commissioner (Appeals) | Sixty days, thirty condonable | Communication of the order | Section 128 |
| Appeal to the Tribunal | Three months | Communication of the order | Section 129A(3) |
| Appeal to the High Court | One hundred and eighty days | Receipt of the Tribunal order | Section 130(1) |
Work the dates out for your own matter in the limitation calculator, and the deposit in the appeal planner.
More classification disputes are decided by how the goods were described at import than by any technical argument made afterwards. A description written for a foreign supplier's convenience becomes the department's case.
Five years is available only where collusion, wilful misstatement or suppression is alleged and established. Where the facts were disclosed on the bill of entry, that allegation is usually answerable, and it is the single highest value point in most demands.
Statements recorded during an investigation carry weight far beyond what people expect when giving them. Their retraction is possible and rarely as effective as not needing one.
One consignment cleared differently to save time becomes the department's premise for a hundred others. Consistency is worth more than any individual clearance.
A reference is not an accusation. It is a process, and it is answerable with the agreement, the transfer pricing study, the payment records and a clear explanation of how the price was set. Delay in producing that is what turns a routine reference into an adverse order and a loading on every future consignment.
The assessing officer may be in another city and will never see the goods. Everything is decided on what is uploaded. A query answered in one line, without the literature attached, is the commonest reason a consignment sits at the port.
Demurrage and detention normally cost more than the duty in dispute. Getting the goods out on bond and security, while contesting the merits separately, is nearly always the right first move.
First to the period. A reclassification applied to past consignments is a demand, and it has to sit inside two years unless suppression is alleged and made out. Where the goods were fully described at import, that allegation is difficult for the department to sustain. Second to the merits, which turn on the description, the technical literature, the general rules of interpretation and any ruling on the same product.
It is routine for related party imports and it is not an allegation. What matters is the quality and the speed of the reply. The agreement, the basis of pricing, the treatment of royalties and any payment that is a condition of sale all have to be explained with documents, once, properly.
That is the most expensive decision available. What is accepted to release one container is quoted against every consignment after it, and against the past ones too. Apply for provisional release and argue the value separately.
Longer than anyone would like, and it varies by bench and by the category of matter. That is precisely why the practice pushes so hard at the earlier stages. Anyone who gives you a confident number is guessing.
Yes. The origin verification framework allows the department to ask the importer for the information behind the certificate, and to deny preference where it is not produced. The record you were required to keep at the time of import is what decides it.
A first conversation costs you nothing but the hour, and it is where we tell you honestly whether the matter needs us at all.