Delhi Hight court just defined chappals and Sandals. Check yours and pay appropriate custom fee

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Delhi High Court has just redefined women’s footwear to demonstrate customs duty. In the context, a woman's footwear without a back strap is a sandal and that with is a chappal, ruled the court.

The order came to the light while discussing custom duty levied on exports of chappals and sandals. What’s weird is not the court’s definition, rather a government order that says export of sandals would attract 10% custom duty while chappals will attract 5%.

The government had withdrawn a 10 per cent duty drawback given to a footwear manufacturer saying the footwear exported by it were 'chappals' as these did not have back strap. The Delhi High Court, while ruling that these were sandals, quashed the government's decision.
Disagreeing with the government's view, a bench of justices S Ravindra Bhat and Najmi Waziri ruled, "The respondents (Centre and the Revenue Department), in our opinion, acted upon prejudice and a preconceived notion that ladies sandals cannot be without a back strap".
It said in view of the totality of circumstances, "this court is of the opinion that the impugned orders, upholding duty drawback withdrawal and imposing penalty cannot be sustained. They are hereby quashed".

The court said that an expert body, Council of Leather Exports which routinely dealt with such issues in context of export, had, based on evidence and instructions of government, furnished an opinion that goods were sandals and not chappals.

The court's order came on a plea by Chennai-based footwear manufacturer, Wishall International, challenging the government's position that a woman's footwear without a back strap was a chappal and not a sandal.

The firm in May 2003 had filed a shipping bill to export the consignment declared as "ladies leather sandals" claiming 10 per cent customs duty drawback. The Customs Department here, however, had said the export consignment were chappals.

The company, however, had sought opinion from the Council of Leather Exports which had cleared the export consignment as sandals.