This course covers the legal framework for preferential tariff treatment under trade agreements — Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements (CEPAs), and Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) — from the customs administration perspective, under Section 28DA of the Customs Act 1962 and the Customs (Administration of Rules of Origin under Trade Agreements) Rules 2020 (CAROTAR 2020), read alongside Chapter 36 of the Indian Customs Manual 2025. India has concluded a significant number of trade agreements — including agreements with ASEAN, Japan, South Korea, UAE, and Australia — each offering concessional duty rates for goods originating in the partner country, and the customs machinery must verify that claimed preferences are legitimate. CBLE tests this framework at the level of the importer's obligations, the verification process, and the consequences of incorrectly claimed preferences.

Section 28DA — inserted by the Finance Act 2020 — is the statutory backbone of the course. It places a direct obligation on the importer claiming preferential tariff treatment to satisfy themselves that the goods meet the Rules of Origin conditions specified in the applicable trade agreement, to possess information supporting the origin claim, and to exercise due diligence in verifying that claim. The due diligence obligation on the importer is a critical CBLE concept since it represents a departure from the earlier position where the importer merely submitted a Certificate of Origin and the customs officer bore the verification burden — under Section 28DA, the importer is now a co-responsible party in establishing origin. CAROTAR 2020 operationalises this obligation by prescribing the minimum information that an importer must possess at the time of filing the Bill of Entry claiming preferential treatment — specifically the details to be entered in Form I of the Rules — and the consequences of being unable to provide this information when called upon to do so.

The course explains the Rules of Origin framework that underpins preferential claims: the two primary methods of establishing origin — Wholly Obtained (WO) criteria for goods produced entirely in the partner country using no third-country inputs, and Substantial Transformation criteria for goods incorporating third-country inputs that have undergone sufficient processing — and the specific criteria used to measure substantial transformation: Change in Tariff Classification (CTC), Regional Value Content (RVC), and specific process requirements. Each criterion is explained with worked examples since CBLE tests whether a given production scenario satisfies the applicable origin rule, and candidates must be able to apply the rule rather than merely identify it.