This course covers the legal mechanics of duty assessment under Chapter V of the Customs Act 1962, grounded in the Indian Customs Manual 2025 and the statutory provisions that govern how a customs officer — and increasingly, a faceless system — determines the duty payable on imported and exported goods. The course opens with the assessment framework under Section 17, walking through the shift from officer-driven assessment to the self-assessment model where the importer or exporter themselves first determines duty liability, and the proper officer's role in verification, reassessment, and audit thereafter. It then covers provisional assessment under Section 18 — the conditions under which it is ordered, the requirement of a bond and security, finalization timelines, and the interest implications that follow — since provisional assessment is a reliably recurring topic in CBLE questions.

The course then moves into the Faceless Assessment scheme introduced through Section 17 read with the Customs (Faceless Assessment) Regulations, examining how Bills of Entry are assigned to National Assessment Centres, the interaction between the assessing officer and the importer through the ICEGATE portal, and the circumstances under which a matter may be recalled to the port of import. The course explains the legal basis of the Risk Management System (RMS) in routing consignments — Green Channel, Yellow Channel, and examination orders — and how assessment interacts with those channels. Specific attention is given to Section 18 finalization of provisional assessment, interest under Section 18(3), and Section 128 appeal rights post-assessment, since examiners frequently test the procedural chain from assessment to dispute. The course draws directly from Chapter 4 of the Indian Customs Manual 2025, connecting each statutory provision to its corresponding administrative procedure.