Case nº Ruling No. AAR/26(Cus)/2005 in Application No. AAR/44(Cus)/40/2005 of Authority for Advance Rulings, November 24, 2005 (case Alcatel India Ltd. Vs Commissioner of Customs)

JudgeFor Respondents: A.K. Roy, Joint CDR CESTAT
PresidentSyed Shah Mohammed Quadri, J. (Chairman), Somnath Pal and B.A. Agrawal, Members
Resolution DateNovember 24, 2005

Judgment:

(Central Excise, Customs and Service Tax)

Syed Shah Mohammed Quadri, J. (Chairman)

  1. In this application under Section 28H of the Customs Act, 1962 (for short "the Act"), M/s. Alcatel India Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Alcatel, France, proposes to import into India the latest technology equipment of Optical Networking/GSM equipment etc. To ascertain its customs duty liability in regard to the hardware and optical fibre cables for submarine telecommunications systems, it seeks advance ruling of the Authority on the following question:

    "Whether the Alcatel Light Manager-1626 proposed to be imported into India, is classifiable under Heading No. 8517 5099 of the First Schedule of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975."

    The Alcatel 1626 Light manager (for short the "goods") is a hybrid of optical, electronic and mechanical system that forms part of a telecommunication system for use in transmission of aggregate data. The goods are telecommunications equipment, which offer a transmission system providing very high bandwidth capacity through Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology. The system can provide up to 96x10 Gbit/s operating channels with a 0 to 100% add/drop capability in the OADM's (Optical Add/Drop Multiplexers), which enable selective access to the needed channels and non-regenerative pass-through for the others. The goods include: (a) the Mux/Demux architecture; (b) the 10 Gbit/s transponders and concentrators; (c) the booster and the pre-amplifier and manage the integrity, quality, receipt and transmission of telecommunication aggregate data within the telecommunication system and are capable of providing transmission in a terrestrial environment across all the distances classes. It is submitted that in accordance with Rule 1 of the General Rules for the Interpretation of the First Schedule to the Customs Tariff Act 1975 (for short "the Rules") the said goods are classifiable under Tariff heading 8517; in accordance with Rule 6, these goods will fall under sub-heading 8517 50 and that the appropriate tariff heading is 8517 50 99. It is added that the U.K. and Australia have classified the goods under tariff heading 8517 50.

  2. In his comments the designated Commissioner of Customs states as follows:

    Comments: On the basis of description of goods given in annexure II and General characteristics given in Technical documents, it appears that the party's contention that in accordance with Rule 1 of the...

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