Textile testing laboratories who swear on their lab reports’ accuracy now need to relook at their working after Delhi-based fabric importer Abhishek Rajan, suffered not only loss of business but also had to spend 50 days in jail because of a wrong test report… Today Rajan is knocking at the doors of the Madras High Court for a compensation of Rs. 50 lakh from a host of central authorities, including the customs. The reason for his imprisonment and ignominy was a wrong report given by a Central Government laboratory on the fabric he imported, and the steep duty imposed upon him by the customs department on the basis of the laboratory results.
Six months later, the Chennai-based laboratory admitted to its mistake, and asked the customs authorities to treat the report as ‘cancelled’ and then ‘expressed regret’. But by then, Rajan had spent 50 days in jail.
Rajan’s repeated plea for re-testing the samples were rejected, and the customs authorities swung into action, imposing an anti-dumping duty of 1.07 crore on Rajan and charged him with attempting to evade duty. Rajan again moved the High Court and obtained a direction to the customs authorities to send the material for re-testing. This time, it was sent to a Mumbai-based laboratory, who testified that the material imported was indeed ramie fabric and not linen as reported. In the meanwhile, the Chennai laboratory admitted to wrong identification of the fibre and its mistake.
