PAWAN JAIN Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner invokes the extra ordinary jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for issuance of a Writ of Certiorari and/or any other appropriate writ challenging the impugned order dtd. 27/9/2019 passed by the Revisionary Authority, Additional Secretary to the Government of India, Ministry of Finance, New Delhi [Revisionary Authority], whereby the claim for refund of duty paid on inputs for executing the export obligations under Rule 18 of the Central Excise Rules, 2002 [CER] read with notification No. 41/2001-CE (NT) dtd. 26/6/2001 was declined.

(2.) The petitioner, having its registered office in Delhi, is engaged in the business of manufacturing and export of S.S. Utensils etc. and it was having Central Excise Registration No. AAOPJ7853NXM001. It is stated that certain exports obligations were duly undertaken during the period 2003-2004 for which the petitioner filed six separate Rebate Claims in the year 2004 pertaining to the period from September 2003 to March 2004, thereby seeking rebate of duty amounting to a total of Rs.97,71,926.00 that was claimed to have been paid on the inputs used in the manufacturing of the end product. It is stated that the Rebate Claims were lodged in terms of Rule 18 of the CER and in terms of Notification No. 41/2001 dtd. 26/6/2001. All the relevant documents were submitted with the respondent except that a request was also made by the petitioner to condone the procedural lapse of filing A.R.E. 1 instead of A.R.E. 2 besides submitting a request for fixation of the input-output norms in terms applicable during the export period in terms of letter from the Office of Assistant Commissioner, Central Excise dtd. 18/3/2004 [C.No.V(87)18/REF/IO/PJS/D-I/2003].

(3.) To cut the long story short, six Orders-in-Original dtd. 30/7/2008 were passed separately by the Adjudicating Authority, thereby granting total refund amounting to Rs.49,15,971.00. Aggrieved thereby the petitioner filed an appeal before the Commissioner (Appeal) on 6/1/2009 which was dismissed in limine vide order dtd. 29/9/2009 primarily for the same being time barred as it was claimed by the Department that the copy of the impugned six orders in original had been supplied to the authorised representative of the petitioner on 21/8/2008. The revision application filed by the petitioner before Revisionary Authority was allowed vide order dtd. 30/8/2011, thereby setting aside the orders in Appeal dtd. 29/9/2009 and remanded the matter back to the Commissioner (Appeal) with a direction to decide the case afresh on merits after affording a reasonable opportunity of hearing to the petitioner.