A letter of consent signed by an importer for the enhancement of assessable value does not constitute an abandonment of the statutory right to challenge the reassessment, and the proper officer remains obligated under Section 17(5) of the Customs Act, 1962 to issue a speaking order.

PER BENCH:

All the above 05 Appeals are taken up together as the issue involved is primarily whether the appeals filed by the Appellants were correctly rejected by the learned Commissioner (Appeals) holding that the Appellants accepted the enhancement of the value in writing at the time of clearance of the consignment in question.

2. Briefly stated, the facts of the case are that the Appellantsare engaged in the business of import and trading in various types of goods including Polyester Knitted Fabrics of Mix Lot (Rolls of assorted colour and weight) and have been importing the same from Hong Kong/China during the period from May to June 2019 at ICD Dadri against negotiated price. On arrival of goods, the Appellant filed the Bills of Entry for clearance and submitted all the desired documents.

3. Learned Counsel for the Appellants submitted that the Appellants are regular importers of different kind of fabrics and have imported consignments of fabrics from Hong Kong/China during the period May to June 2019 at ICD, Dadri against negotiated price. It has further been contended that the Appellants had self-assessed the duty correctly as per the respective invoices. However, no ‘Out of Charge Orders’ were passed. The Appellants made written requests to the Proper Officer to clear the consignments provisionally paying duty on the enhanced value under protest in order to avoid delay in clearance of consignments. According to the Appellants, no cognizance was taken by the Proper Officer despite several written requests made for clearance of consignment on enhanced value under protest. Finally, the Appellants were coerced to submit letters of consent agreeing to assessment/valuation by the Customs Authorities. The Appellants further contended that the Customs Authorities without observing the mandate of Section 14 of the Customs Act, 1962, discarded the declared transaction value and enhanced the value on the basis of the consent letter.

4. It was further contended that since the acceptance letters were not voluntary, the Appellants wrote several letters requesting the Ld. Assessing Officer to issue Speaking Order. However, no speaking Order was passed. Hence, the Appellants filed respective Appeals before the Commissioner (Appeals) against the assessment made in the respective Bills of Entry. The Appellate Authority sought comments from the Department on the Appeals filed by the Appellants wherein the Department contended that the re-assessment has been done under Section 17(4) of the Customs Act, 1962 on the basis of written consent, therefore, no speaking Order was passed. All the Appeals were rejected merely on the ground that since the Appellants have accepted the enhancement of value in writing there was no requirement of issuance of speaking Order under Section 17(5) of the Customs Act, 1962 and therefore, the assessable value determined by the Adjudicating Authority on reassessment of imported goods in the Bills of Entry and accepted by the Appellants in writing was legal and binding on the Appellants.

5. Learned Counsel further submitted that the letter of acceptance which has been reproduced in the Order-in-Appeal does not provide any evidence of contemporaneous import and merely mentions that the declared value is liable to be rejected and redetermined on the basis of the data of contemporaneous import. It is further submitted that merely mentioning that the declared value is liable to be rejected and the same is liable to be assessed at a particu