HP Sales India Pvt ltd Vs Commissioner of Customs(Import)[Supreme Court)
Date-17th January 2023
Sub-Whether Automatic Data Processing Machines(ADP) can be said to be portable or not so as to attract a particular entry for levy of customs duty?

An interesting question arose in this case where the Appellant and Lenovo contended that the ADP imported by it was classifiable under the entry 84715000 as against the department’s classification under the entry 84713010 since they could not be said to be portable. The Supreme Court discussed in detail the meaning of the term portable and also cautioned against use of the term portable in Wikipedia which could not be termed as authentic as it was merely crowd sourced platform for definition and placed reliance on reliance sources like Oxford dictionary of computer science etc and arrived at a conclusion that in order to be portable, the weight was not the only factor rather the ability to carry around easily and suitability for daily transit was determinative factor and when seen in this light the ADP imported by the Appellants being not laptop or similar item was correctly classified under entry 84715000 and thus eligible for concessional manner of calculating duty and thus the assessee’s SLP was allowed.

This judgement will be helpful in deciphering the meaning of various entries under the Indirect tax law.

Ramesh Patodia
17-01-2023