New Delhi: Are fitness bands popularly used for measuring and monitoring physical activities and vital parameters a communication device? Supreme Court Agreed to investigate this question, but noted that its Bluetooth connectivity capability may be the reason for its classification as a communications device.Petitioner GOQii Technologies imported activity trackers/fitness bands, and the consignment was classified as communication devices by the Customs Department, asking the company to execute provisional duty bonds worth Rs 3.64 crore. The goods were released after the company gave a bank guarantee of Rs 1 crore.Petitioner’s counsel Kumar Sambhav told a bench of Justices PS Narasimha, Arvind Kumar and Shri Chandrashekhar that fitness bands measuring/counting devices should have been classified as ‘pedometers and similar/others’, but the Customs department mistakenly treated the goods as devices for ‘transmission or reception of data’ and imposed additional duty.The bench agreed to examine the questions raised by the petitioner, issued notice to the Commissioner of Customs (Import) and posted the matter for further hearing on September 11. “Till the next date of hearing, the bank guarantee shall not be enforced,” the bench ordered.“The main and principal function of the goods, as found on record, is measurement and monitoring of physical activity and vital parameters, and the data-connectivity (Bluetooth) feature is admittedly helpful,” the petitioner said.Justice Kumar said that when it can be connected to communication devices like mobile phones and other satellite-based communication systems through Bluetooth and serve as a communication device, it ceases to be a purely measuring device.The petitioner submitted before the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) that he had sought expert opinion from Bombay IIT that it was not a communication device but a measuring instrument, but the tribunal upheld the Customs Department’s stand.CESTAT had rejected the company’s petition to classify fitness bands as ‘pedometers’, saying, “The essential function of all pedometers is to measure the distance traveled by a person as he takes each step, a mechanism such as swinging a pendulum to one side and then back again or touching a metal contact to a swinging hammer to complete an electrical circuit for measuring each such step.”Maintaining the determination that these fitness bands were communication devices, CESTAT had said, “Once the activity tracker/fitness band or smart watch is synced with the GOQii application, regular activity data and sleep data, automatically and manually tracked, will be visible to coaches, who will provide daily support, resources, motivation, and interpretation of the tracking data to help the individual wearer stay on track to reach personal fitness goals.“