OMEGA BRIGHT STEEL PVT. LTD. Vs. CCE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellants are manufacturer of Carbon Steel Bright bars of iron and steel falling under Chapter 72 of the Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985. The appellants issued supplementary invoice No. 1547 dated 11.8.2003 amounting to Rs. 1,39,203/ - including excise duty component of Rs. 18,462/ - being the differential amount of value of carbon steel bright bars supplied by the appellants to their customers during the period from 16.7.2003 to 9.8.2003. The refund claim was filed on the ground that the customer had not accepted the price increase for the month of July, 2003 and only passed the bill for the month of August. Since their bill for differential value was not passed by their customers for the month of July, 2003, therefore, they filed refund claim of Rs. 10,676/ - for the duty paid on the differential value. The claim was rejected by the Assistant Commissioner on the ground that there is no provision under Section 11 -AB under which the application is filed for refund of duty in the case where the bills of manufacturers are not approved by the customers. The Commissioner (Appeals) has approved the order of original authority on the ground that excise duty paid does not become refundable if payment is not approved by the buyer. The duty is payable on the value of the product and the rate increase shows the chargeable value though at a later stage.

(2.) THE appellants, in the application received in the registry on 10.3.2006, have requested to decide the appeal on merits.

(3.) IN the grounds of appeal, it is claimed that no show cause notice was issued before rejecting the refund claim. The order of Commissioner (Appeals) is a deviation from the order in original as he has rejected the appeal on entirely different ground.