Full Judgment
2. The importer appealed this order. The Commissioner (Appeals), relying upon two decisions of the Tribunal, allowed this appeal and set aside the Assistant Collector's order. Hence this appeal by the department.
3. The ground in the appeal, not very clearly expressed, is that heading 98.01 has been specifically introduced with a view to facilitating clearances required for establishing projects of substantial expansion. Therefore, once the classification under this heading is claimed for any goods, they cannot be classified under any other heading.
4. We are unable to agree with this proposition. In Chowgule Matrix Hobs Ltd. v. CC -1987 (31) E.L.T. 736, one of the two decisions that the Commissioner (Appeals) has relied upon, the Tribunal held that unless there is anything in the law prohibiting claiming the exemption available to goods, the fact that they have been classified under Heading 84.66 which at the relevant time was the heading for project import would not preclude the benefit of other exemption. We would only like to add that the reason for this conclusion is evident. Heading 98.01 was, as the appeal itself points out, created only to facilitate (both for the importer as well as for the department), the process of assessment. It is evident that imports for setting up for substantial expansion project would cover various kinds of goods ranging across virtually the entire scope of the tariff. Various items such as number of bolts, washers, cements, machines, their components, etc., all have to be assessed separately. In the absence of this heading, each particular item of a vast number imported for a particular project would have to be assessed on merits. The object of this Heading 98.01 and the regulation is to prescribe a single rate of duty for these goods so that their assessment can be facilitated.
5. It does not follow from this that the goods ceased to be classifiable under any other heading of the tariff. It would then mean if Heading 98.01 were removed from the tariff, these goods would not be capable of classification at all. That is obviously not the case. Any commodity that is classifiable under Heading 98.01 has necessarily to be classifiable under any other heading of the tariff. It is settled that any importer can claim reassessment of the goods imported by him.
He can question the value or the classification on the basis of which the commodity had been assessed, for example, by claiming refund under Section 28 of the Act. Therefore unless there is something specifically prohibiting any such classification, either in the Project Import Regulation or in the tariff or notification in question such reassessment could be claimed. This is what the importer has done. We therefore do not see any reason to interfere.