Case nº Ruling No. AAR/Cus/28/2016 in Application No. AAR/44/Cus/27/2013 of AAR Cases, August 12, 2016 (case Middleby Celfrost Innovations Pvt. Ltd. Vs Commissioner of Customs(Port-Import))
| Judge | For Appellant: B.L. Narasimhan, Advocate and For Respondents: Govind Krishna Dixit, Authorised Representative |
| President | V.S. Sirpurkar, J. (Chairman), S.S. Rana and R.S. Shukla, Members |
| Resolution Date | August 12, 2016 |
| Issuing Organization | AAR Cases |
Judgment:
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'Middleby Commercial Food Innovations Pvt. Ltd. (hereinafter also referred to as applicant) is a private limited company registered in India under Companies Act, 1956. It is a subsidiary of Middleby Europe SL, Spain. Middleby Europe SL, Spain is engaged in the business of food service equipment and is known worldwide for delivering a range of high quality food service equipment. After extending its reach in various other countries, Middleby Europe has now formed the applicant as its wholly owned subsidiary. It has been set up with the aim to establish commercial refrigeration and food service products in India. Its focus is to provide international range of refrigeration, freezing and foodservice products & solutions for hotels, restaurants, bars, frozen yogurt stores, coffee shops, bakeries, ice cream & beverage, food retail and the healthcare segments. The mode of operation of the applicant's business will include three stages:
a) Placement of order: At first, the applicant will place its order on the foreign supplier(s) and will inform the name and the quantity of the products it need.
b) Importation: Upon placement of the order, the foreign supplier will export the products in pre-packaged form to the Applicant in India.
c) In the meanwhile the consumers will place their order on the applicant. Once the product reaches the applicant, it will then supply the product to the consumers on the basis of their demand.
In order to start its business activities in India, the applicant now proposes to import refrigeration and food services products such as chest freezers, professional refrigeration products, refrigerated displays, ice machines, upright freezers, cold room, bakery ovens, commercial microwave ovens for baking/grilling, catering products, mini-bars, coffee machines, confectionary showcases, food processors etc. The applicant will not undertake any activity on these imported products but would sell the same to the consumers/customers as such. There are three channels in which the applicant has finalized to sell the products:
a.) Sales to individual dealers for further sale,
b.) Sales to industrial consumer such as Pharmaceutical units etc. directly,
c.) Sales to others.
Applicant submits that the business model of the applicant is such that it will not be known at the time of importation whether the goods to be imported will be sold to industrial consumer, institutional consumer or retail consumer. Further...
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