Government of the exporting country, in the form annexed, shall be granted preferential treatment by the importing country. It is therefore clear that there is no specific requirement for indicating the third party invoicing details in the COO, in terms of legal provisions governing the procedure for grant of ISFTA concessions. Further, it is not in dispute that the impugned goods are ‘wholly obtained’, as Rule 7(b) of the Rules of 2000 state that in respect of Non-originating materials, it shall be considered to be sufficiently worked or processed to extend the ISFTA benefit, when there is change in the classification of the final product obtained, at the four digit level, of the Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System, which is different from those in which all the non-originating materials used in its manufacture are classified. As the COO Certificates specifically provide that “ The Tariff Heading of the imported Raw materials has been changed at four digit level at the final Manufacturing process taken place within the Sri Lanka ”, there is sufficient evidence to state that the impugned goods are of ‘wholly obtained’ from Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the COO certificates have been issued by the Commercial Research Officer, Department of Commerce, Colombo, Sri Lanka who are the proper authority for issuing such COO certificates, and there is no dispute on this point. In the above factual position, the conclusion arrived at by the learned Commissioner of Customs (Appeals) for denying the ISFTA duty concession in the present case is not supported by any legal basis and therefore on this ground, the impugned order is liable to be set aside.
