- (1.) A brief question arises in these appeals, namely, having, for the purposes of assessment of Customs duty, assessed landing charges at the rate of 1.4 per cent of the CIF value of imported goods, can the Customs authorities also add to their value stevedoring charges.
(2.) The appellants manufacture fertilizers. For this purpose they imported large quantities of rock phosphate and sulphur. The said goods were brought to India in chartered ships arranged by the M.M.T.C., the canalising agency at the relevant time, namely, 1971 to 1975. The said goods were purchased by the appellants on the high seas. The responsibility of unloading the said goods in India was theirs. For the purpose of efficient unloading, the appellants maintained their own wharf at Visakhapatnam, unloading equipment and staff for the same.
(3.) Landing charges of the said goods were assessed at 1.4 per cent of the CIF value thereof. The Assistant Collector said that the 1.4 per cent landing charges did not include stevedoring charges and he added them separately, calculating them upon the basis of, inter alia, unloading labour charges, Customs staff overtime, port hire charges for dinning hall, fuel, electricity, depreciation, approximate maintenance cost, administrative overheads and notional interest on capital. He found that the stevedoring charges ranged between Rs. 5.86 to Rs. 9.42 per metric tonne of the said goods.;