Pranav B Prem

The New Delhi Bench of the 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. The bench comprising Justice Dilip Gupta (President) and P.V. Subba Rao (Technical Member) observed that Section 138C applies only when the document is printed or produced from a computer other than that of the assessee.

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The assessee, M/s Royal Blankets, a proprietorship firm of Nitin Khandelwal, was subjected to investigation after the authorities found an Excel sheet in Nitin’s email account showing under-valuation of goods imported by his firm and another concern, Wide Impex. The Department alleged that the assessee had under-declared the transaction value in respect of 23 Bills of Entry filed under Rule 12 of the Customs Valuation (Determination of Value of Imported Goods) Rules, 2007. Based on the data from the Excel sheet, the Commissioner rejected the declared transaction values and re-determined them, confirming a differential customs duty demand of ₹1,85,84,364 under Section 28(4) of the Customs Act, along with interest and penalties.

The assessee challenged the order contending that the entire case was based on unsigned and unstamped Excel sheets allegedly retrieved from his Gmail account. It was argued that the Excel sheet could not be relied upon in the absence of a certificate under Section 138C of the Customs Act, which governs admissibility of computer printouts as evidence. The counsel contended that since no such certificate was produced, the Excel sheet was inadmissible, and the demand was therefore unsustainable.

In response, the Revenue submitted that during the investigation, the assessee had voluntarily accessed his Gmail account using his password in the office of the Special Intelligence and Investigation Branch (SIIB) and printed the Excel sheets himself. These documents, it was argued, were retrieved from the assessee’s own email account and signed by him when his statement was recorded. Therefore, the requirement under Section 138C was not applicable since the data was obtained directly from the assessee’s email, not from a third-party computer system.

The Tribunal accepted the Revenue’s position and noted that Section 138C applies only when the electronic record is retrieved from a computer other than that of the assessee. Since the Excel sheet was in the assessee’s own Gmail account, accessed by him using his credentials, the requirement of a certificate did not arise. The bench remarked 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.”

The Tribunal further observed that although the Commissioner treated the prices in the Excel sheet as Free on Board (FOB) prices, in the absence of evidence to support this, they should be considered as Cost, Insurance, and Freight (CIF) values. Consequently, the assessable value and customs duty were directed to be re-determined accordingly. However, the demand for anti-dumping duty of ₹79,947 was set aside.

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Concluding the matter, the bench held that the Excel sheet recovered from the assessee’s email could be relied upon for determining the correct valuation of imported goods even without a Section 138C certificate. The appeal was partly allowed, with the Tribunal upholding the penalty imposed under Section 114AA of the Customs Act.

Appearance

Counsel for Appellant/Assessee: Shri Gurdeep Singh and Shri Jaideep Ahuja

Counsel for Respondent/ Department: Shri Nikhil Mohan Goyal

Cause Title: Royal Blankets v. Principal Commissioner, Customs

Case No: Customs Appeal No. 51721 Of 2021

Coram: Justice Dilip Gupta (President), P.V. Subba Rao (Technical Member)