HC notice to Centre over Vedanta seeking rollback of duty

The Madurai Bench of the Madras Madras High Court here today ordered notice to the union government on a plea of the Vedanta group, seeking to quash the notification rescinding duty exemption for imports for five years, ending 2020, following the introduction of GST.

Justice Nisha Banu ordered the notice to the Centre and Revenue Intelligence Department. Petitioner Janaki Ram submitted that after announcing the foreign trade policy for five years valid up to 2020, rescinding of the duty concession cannot be done on imported raw materials under the Advanced Authorisation Scheme (AAS) with the duty-free entitlement, as the new GST has come into force.

He said Vedanta group had earned revenue of Rs 11.11 crore by exporting copper cathode, copper rods, phosphoric acid and sulphuric acid and won government accolades for export achievements.

The company had also won the tag of a four-star export house by the government, he said.

The Vedanta group, which owns the Sterlite Copper Smelter Plant, was issued the AAS license and had been exporting the finished goods also as per the scheme, he said.

As per the policy, the duty-free concession was given to exporters who produced as well as traders who exported. Therefore, such a notification rescinding the duty concession was arbitrary and goes against the policy, he added.

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