SHIVAPPA GURLINGAPPA SAVALGI Vs. COLLECTOR OF CEX BANGALORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is a resident of Jamkhandi town who engages himself in the purchase and sale of groundnuts and groundnut oil. By a notice issued to him on August 4, 1957, the Collectorate of Central Excise called upon him to pay excise duty in the sum of Rs. 10,356.02 nP. which according to the Excise authorities represented the excise duty payable by the petitioner for the years 1956-57 and 1957-58. On August 6, 1957, evidently after the demand was made of the petitioner for the payment of the excise duty, he applied for permission to pay the excise duty in six monthly instalments. He addressed a letter to the Range Officer of the Central Excise, Jamkhandi, in which he prayed for permission to do so. In that letter, he informed the Range Officer that he had applied on that date for the grant of a licence to him which obviously was a licence which he had to obtain for the manufacture of goods liable to Central Duty of Excise. He also stated in that letter that he was having transactions with two mills in Jamkhandi known as the Mirza Oil Mills and Rameswara Oil Mills. He proceeded to state that he would honour the demand notice served on him for the payment of the excise duty payable by him for the years 1956-57 and 1957-58, but that since the amount demanded of him was very heavy he was not in a position to pay that amount in a lump sum. That was the reason why he prayed for permission to pay the amount by instalments.

(2.) It is not disputed that on the very same date he made two applications for the grant of licences to him to manufacture goods liable to Central Duty of Excise. The original applications made by him for that purpose have been produced before us. Both these applications were made by him on August 6, 1957, and were addressed to the Collector of Central Excise, Bangalore. The first of those applications related to the year ending on the 31st of December, 1956 and the second related to the year ending on the 31st of December, 1957. In those applications the petitioner applied for licences to manufacture vegetable non-essential oils, and the places where he proposed to manufacture those oils were described by him as Rameshwara Oil Mills and Mirza Oil Mills, Jamkhandi.

(3.) Thereafter, and, in spite of the fact, that the petitioner consented to pay the excise duty demanded of him, he made a complaint to the Assistant Collector of Central Excise, Bellary, that the duty demanded of him was not payable by him. The Assistant Collector negatived that contention and directed the petitioner to pay the duty within ten days from the date of the receipt of his order. From that order the petitioner appealed to the Collector of Central Excise, Bangalore. That appeal was dismissed for non-compliance with the provisions of Section 189 of the Sea Customs Act read with Rule 215 of the Central Excise Rules 1944, in accordance with the provisions of which the appellant had to deposit the excise duty demanded of him in the first instance. After the dismissal of the petitioner's appeal in that way, the petitioner presented this writ petition to this court in which he asks that the demand for the payment of the excise duty by him should be quashed.