Anti-dumping duty is only for a limited period of time

Anti-dumping duty is only for a limited period of time

A three Judge Bench of the Supreme Court, comprising of Justices Arun Mishra, Vineet Saran and S. Ravindra Bhat, have held that levy of antidumping Duty (ADD)  Can only be for a limited duration and not for later periods. The judgment dated September 1, 2020 was in the case of The Designated Authority & Ors. v. The Andhra Petrochemicals Ltd. (APL). 

In This case, APL had applied to the Government and sought the imposition of ADD on imports of n-butanol from Saudi Arabia into India. This led to the initiation of investigation by the Designated Authority (DA) by Notifi cation dated 02.09.2016. However, the DA was of the opinion that it is not appropriate to impose ADD and therefore, terminated the investigation under Rule 14(b) of Anti-Dumping Rules. Being aggrieved, APL fi led a Writ Petition in the Telangana High Court, challenging the orders of the DA on he ground that the exports from Saudi Arabia were not just casual exports, but aimed at capturing the Indian market, as the performance of the domestic industry during the period of January to March, 2016 was adverse in terms of profits and returns on investments. 

The Tlangana High Court directed the DA to initiate an investigation into the alleged dumping and consequent injury to the domestic industry. But the DA conducted investigation only for a limited period of time, i.e. three months. As a result, the High Court initiated suomoto contempt petition against the DA and passed an Order dated 22.07.2019 directing the Central Government to choose a substitute DA on the ground that he failed to enlarge the period of investigation, as per the High Court’s directions.