ARUN INTERNATIONAL Vs. C.C.E.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE facts leading to filing of this appeal are, in brief, as under: - -

(2.) HEARD both the sides.

(3.) SHRI Ranjan Khanna, ld. Departmental Representative, defended the impugned order by reiterating the findings of the Commissioner (Appeals) and pleaded that in terms of the provisions of Rule 18 of the Central Excise Rules, 2002 where any goods are exported, the Central Government may, by notification, grant rebate of duty paid on such excisable goods or duty paid on materials used in the manufacture or processing of such goods and the rebate would be subject to conditions or limitations, if any, and fulfillment of such procedure as prescribed in the notification, that this is a case of claim for rebate of central excise duty paid on the inputs used in the manufacture of the finished goods, which had been exported, that for rebate of excise duty paid on the inputs used in the manufacture/processing of export goods, the Central Government has prescribed the procedure and conditions under notification no. dated 26.06.2001, that para -1 of this notification prescribes the conditions, subject to which, the input duty rebate would be admissible, that as per the conditions prescribed in this notification, the manufacturer shall file a declaration with the jurisdictional Asstt. Commissioner/Dy. Commissioner declaring the finished goods proposed to be manufactured/processed for export along with the rate of duty leviable, the manufacturing/processing formula with particular reference to the quantity, or proportion in which the input materials are actually used, that input -output ratio so declared is required to be verified and approved by the jurisdictional Asstt./Dy. Commissioner, that as per the conditions of the notification, the material for manufacturing of export goods is to be procured directly from the manufacturer or a registered dealer, that the export consignments are to be cleared under ARE -2 form, a part of which is to be filled in and signed by the jurisdictional Superintendent of Central Excise and Inspector, Central Excise and para -B of the ARE -2 is filled -in and signed by the Customs Officers at the port of export, wherein he certifies the date on which the goods were shipped/exported under his supervision, that in this case, the appellant was neither registered with the Central Excise Department nor had filed the required declaration declaring the input -output ratio, description of export products and the inputs, that in absence of the such declaration, there was no opportunity for the department to verify the input -output ratio, that for the purpose of export rebate under Rule 18, input -output ratio cannot be adopted from the standard input duty norms in the Exim Policy, that since the appellant never declared their activity of manufacture of the goods exported under rebate claims, it is not possible to verify as to whether the appellant procured the duty paid inputs directly from the manufacturer or registered dealer and it is an admitted position that the exports were not under ARE -2, that the conditions prescribed for rebate under Notification no. 41/2008 -CE(NT) cannot be said to be mere procedural conditions of technical nature the non -observance of which can be condoned, that the conditions prescribed have been made to prevent the mis -use of this facility and therefore, the same have to be treated as substantive conditions, the non -observance of which would result in denial of the benefit, that in this regard he relies upon the Apex Courts decision in the case of Indian Aluminium Company v. Thane Municipal Corpn. Ltd. reported in : 1991 (55) ELT 454 (SC) and also the Apex Courts decision in the case of Eagle Flask Industries Ltd. v. CCE, Pune - : 2004 (171) ELT 296 (SC) and that in view of the above submissions, there is no infirmity in the impugned order.