SANJIV KHANNA,J. - (1.) Leave granted.
(2.) Impugned order dated 12th September, 2017 passed by the Division Bench of the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad dismisses Writ Petition Tax No.307 of 2017 filed by the appellants, namely M/s Century Metal Recycling Pvt. Ltd. and Gauri Shankar Agarwala, inter alia, on the grounds that the High Court would not exercise extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India as the matter relates to the valuation of imported aluminium scrap which could be assailed in a statutory appeal and it would not Signature Not Verified Digitally signed by be appropriate for the writ court to decide whether the appellant had CHETAN KUMAR Date: 2019.05.17 19:38:37 IST Reason: or had not agreed to valuation by the customs authorities.
(3.) The appellant Company is stated to be engaged in the manufacture of aluminium alloys, for which they regularly import aluminium waste as a raw material for self-consumption. Imported scrap, it is accepted, falls under different code names as per specifications of the Institute of Recycling Industry. The grievance raised by the appellants is that the 2nd respondent i.e. the Principal Commissioner of Customs, Noida Customs Commissionerate and its Officers almost uniformly do not clear the consignments as per the declared transaction value in the bill of entry but insist that the appellants write a letter agreeing to pay customs duty as per the valuation by the customs authorities and compel them to forego their right to provisional assessment under Section 18 of the Customs Act, 1962 ('the Act', for short). The appellants, coerced and intimated, have no option but to give in and issue a letter of consent agreeing to assessment/valuation by the customs authorities to avoid delay in clearance, levy of demurrage, ground rent and container detention charges, etc. It is also alleged that the respondents without observing and contrary to the mandate of Section 14 of the Act discard the declared transactional value and recompute the consignment value in view of the Valuation Alert dated 1st December, 2016 issued by the Central Board of Excise and Customs ('the Board', for short).;