CUSTOMS, EXCI SE AND SERVI CE TAX APPELLATE TRI BUNAL HYDERABAD Division Bench – Court No. – I Customs Appeal No. 20682 of 2015 (Arising out of Order-in-Appeal No. 171/2014-VCH dt.18.12.2014 passed by Commissioner of Customs, Central Excise & Service Tax (Appeals), Visakhapatnam)

M/ s S.K. Sarawagi & Co. Pvt Ltd

10-1-31, Signature Towers, Waltair Uplands, ......Appellant Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh – 530 003 VERSUS Commissioner of Customs Visakhapatnam - CUS ……Respondent

4^th Floor, Customs House, Port Area, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh – 530 035 Appearance Shri S.C. Choudhary, Advocate for the Appellant. Shri K. Sreenivasa Reddy, AR for the Respondent.

CORAM: HON'BLE MR. A.K. JYOTISHI, MEMBER (TECHNICAL)

HON’BLE MR. ANGAD PRASAD, MEMBER (JUDICIAL)

FI NAL ORDER No. A/ 30080/ 2026 Date of Hearing: 16.10.2025 Date of Decision: 06.02.2026 [Order per: ANGAD PRASAD]

M/s S.K. Sarawagi & Co. Pvt Ltd (herein after referred to as Appellant)

are engaged in export of Iron Ore fines. They have filed the Shipping Bill No.004888 dt.04.10.2010 and Shipping Bill No.005014 dt.11.10.2010 for the export of 10,500 WMT of Iron Ore Fines of 61% Fe content through MV Vessel BK Duke under contract dt.04.10.2010 to a buyer in Hong Kong, China. The declared price was assessed provisionally, pending test and submission of final documents on execution of PD/ITC bond and securing revenue deposit towards differential duty between declared unit price of USD 115.00 and final duty to be ascertained and differential moisture content between declared content of 9% and 3%, which was adopted by Visakhapatnam Customs House for differential duty. On finalization, by OIO dt.04.09.2012, the Original Authority found the declared price to be in variance with the contemporaneous export prices and adopted USD 128 PDMT FOB pertaining to M/s Rungta Sons for finalization of the shipping bills. He further held that as per the contract of the appellant, lumps (as per IBS more than 10mm) are allowed up to 10% maximum. However, as per the decision taken by the Department in F.No.S23/307/2009-AP dt.28.01.2011, 5% tolerance is allowed as per the practice followed in the Customs House, Goa. Therefore, over and above tolerance limit of 5%, is leviable to duty at the applicable rates. In terms of Notification No.56/2010-Cus dt.29.04.2010, lumps are leviable to duty @15% advalorem and in the present case, the lumps are found to be 8.4% and accordingly, he has proposed to levy duty on 3.4% of the export goods @15% advalorem. Accordingly, he ordered for recovery of Rs.2,97,081/- along with applicable interest from the appellant. The appellant filed an appeal against the said OIO before the Commissioner (Appeals), who, after personal hearing and considering the relied upon case laws, dismissed the appeal filed by the appellant. Being aggrieved, the appellants filed the present appeal.

2. Learned Advocate for the appellant has submitted that the adjudication order has nowhere mentioned the grounds of doubt to reject the transaction value, and still the Original Authority has gone to compute and compare value of other exporters with the subject export. He has further contended that Original Adjudicating Authority has taken the highest price while adopting the contemporaneous price as transaction value even though the appellants had submitted copies of published journals, wherein the price for 60/61% Fe content was mentioned as 130 USD. He has further submitted that Rule 4(2) of the Export Valuation Rules provides that in determining the value of export goods under sub-rule (1), the proper officer shall make such adjustments as appear to him reasonable taking into consideration the relevant factors including (i) difference in dates of exportation, (ii) difference in commercial levels and quantity levels, (iii) difference in composition quality and design between the goods to be assessed and the goods with which they are being compared and (iv) difference in domestic freight and insurance charges