According to paragraph 92 of the Secretariat Report: "Its views are placed before the Finance Minister for approval in respect of safeguard duties and before the Commerce Minister for imposition of quantitative restrictions. If the Central Government, after conducting a safeguard investigation, is satisfied that any article is imported into India in such increased quantities and under such conditions as to cause or threaten to cause serious injury to domestic industry, it may, by notification in the Official Gazette, impose a safeguard duty on that article. The Central Government may exempt any article from payment of the whole or part of the safeguard duty upon notification in the Official Gazette. The notification must include the article exempted, the quantity exempted, and the article's origin."
9. What criteria and conditions does the Central Government take into account for granting this type of exemption for certain products? Is this extended to a particular country, and under what conditions would a country be granted such an exemption?
Reply: India's Safeguard Legislation under Section 8B of the Customs Tariff Act 1975 contains provisions regarding the power of Central Government to impose safeguard duty, which inter alia includes a provision regarding exemption of certain developing countries from safeguard duty as per Article 9.1 of the WTO Safeguard Agreement.
