To the High Court and the Supreme Court

In one line

From the Tribunal the case goes to the High Court on a substantial question of law, except where it concerns the rate of duty or the value of goods, when it goes directly to the Supreme Court. Precisely: section 130 the appeal to the High Court; sections 130A to 130D the reference machinery; sections 130E and 130F the Supreme Court; section 131 sums due notwithstanding a reference; sections 131A to 131C exclusion of time, transitional provisions, the monetary-limit instruction and definitions.

Why two different routes

Because two different kinds of question need two different courts. Most customs appeals raise ordinary questions of statutory construction, natural justice or limitation, which any High Court can decide and which benefit from being decided close to the trade concerned.

But questions of the rate of duty and of the value of goods for assessment are different. They determine the tax on a commodity for the whole country, and inconsistent answers from different High Courts would mean the same article bearing different duty at Mumbai and at Chennai. That is intolerable in a Union tariff, so Parliament sends those questions directly to the Supreme Court.

The carve-out therefore runs through this whole chapter, and it is also why section 129C(4) forbids a single member of the Tribunal to decide such a case however small the amount.

The provisions

Section 130, appeal to High Court. An appeal shall lie to the High Court from every order passed in appeal by the Appellate Tribunal, not being an order relating, among other things, to the determination of any question having a relation to the rate of duty of customs or to the value of goods for the purposes of assessment, if the High Court is satisfied that the case involves a substantial question of law.

Section 130(2) provides that the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner of Customs or the other party aggrieved may file an appeal within one hundred and eighty days of the date on which the order appealed against is received, in the prescribed form, precisely stating the substantial question of law involved.

Section 130(2A) empowers the High Court to admit an appeal after the expiry of that period if it is satisfied that there was sufficient cause for not filing it within time.

Section 130(3) provides that where the High Court is satisfied that a substantial question of law is involved, it shall formulate that question. Section 130(4) provides that the appeal shall be heard only on the question so formulated, and the respondents shall be allowed to argue that the case does not involve such a question; but the High Court may, for reasons to be recorded, hear the appeal on any other substantial question of law not formulated by it, if it is satisfied that the case involves such a question.