Under the Food Safety and Standards Act, findings by the Competent Authority on moisture content classify goods as roasted, requiring provisional release pending adjudication.

ORDER

The writ petition has been filed seeking for the issuance of a Writ of Mandamus directing the respondents to release the goods imported vide 19 Bills of Entry and issue waiver of demurrage and detention charges in terms of Regulation 6(1)(l) of the Handling of Cargo in Customs Areas Regulations 2009.

2. Heard both.

3. The case of the petitioner is as follows :

During the course of their business, 19 Bills of Entry were filed by the petitioner for clearance of roasted areca nuts, which were refused to be released by the respondents on the purported misclassification of the goods, which, according to the petitioner, is classifiable under CTH 20081920. The classification was subsequently amended as CTH 20081991. Out of the total 29 Bills of Entry, which were originally filed, based on the report given by the Food Safety Authority, 10 Bills of Entry were cleared without any hitch and in so far as the remaining 19 Bills of Entry are concerned, 13 have not been cleared in spite of receipt of the report; for four Bills of Entry, even samples were not drawn and not cleared; and the remaining two Bills of Entry were not cleared for different reasons. Hence, the petitioner is before this Court.

4. The Assistant Commissioner of Customs in the office of the Commissioner of Customs filed a counter affidavit on behalf of the respondents wherein they took the following stand :

(i) Even though the petitioner had declared the consignment as roasted areca nut, based on the Intelligence Report, it was found that there was a possible mis-declaration of raw areca nut being imported under the guise of roasted areca nut in order to avoid prohibitions of minimum import price restrictions and also for evading duty. Accordingly, the samples were drawn from the 19 consignments. Based on the report received from the Central Revenues Control Laboratory, New Delhi (CRCL), the Department will act on the same as per the provisions of the Customs Act , 1962.

(ii) The writ petition is premature and the respondents must be permitted to undertake the entire process and pass an adjudication order after receipt of the test reports and till then, the goods cannot be released. Ultimately, they sought for dismissal of the writ petition.

5. The learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner made the following submissions :

(a) The goods have already been certified to be roasted areca nuts by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) through their accredited laboratories and that it is the only laboratory, which can analyze the imported goods and submit a report.

(b) Section 89 of the Food Safety and Standards Act , 2006 (for brevity, the FSS Act) gives an overriding effect for the report submitted by the Competent Authority after testing the goods and there is no question of once again testing the same goods.

(c) In case of sending a second sample, the Food Safety and Standards (Import) Regulations, 2017 provide that only the importer can seek for retesting and that it cannot be done by the Department.

(d) The First Bench of this Court, by common judgment dated 04.3.2025 in W.A.Nos.3647 and 3648 of 2024 [Commissioner of Customs, Chennai Import, Chennai–II Commissionerate, Customs House, Chennai-1 Vs. M/s.Universal Impex, Navi Mumbai-400705 rep. by its Proprietor Sarfaj Jaliyawala], has categorically held that if the moisture content is between 10% and 15%, the same should be considered as a raw areca nut a