JAY BHARAT STEEL CO Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these seven writ petitions are disposed of by this common order as they are arising out of common order dated 12.02.2004 passed by the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal, West Block No.2, New Delhi (for short "the appellate Tribunal"). For deciding all these matters, we have preferred to narrate the facts of main Special Civil Application no.3315 of 2004 which are as under :

(2.) The petitioner Jay Bharat Steel Company of Special Civil Application No. 3315 of 2004 is a partnership firm engaged in activity of ship breaking. The Assistant Commissioner, Customs passed orders finalising the assessment of the disputed bills of entry and confirmed the differential duties. It is averred in para 3 of the petition that in a number of identical cases of ship breakers, the orders of assessment were challenged by ship breakers in appeal nos. 1575 to 2203 of 1999 before the Commissioner of Central Excise and Customs (Appeals), Ahmedabad - respondent no.3 who, by his order dated 21.10.1999, set aside all the orders of assessment on the ground that the adjudicating authority had not given any opportunity to the ship breakers to present their case and accordingly the matter was remanded to the authority for its denovo consideration after extending an opportunity of hearing to the parties (Annexure `B'). On remand, the Dy.Commissioner (Customs) by the order dated 23.03.2001 confirmed the final assessment orders passed by the Assistant Commissioner, Bhavnagar (Annexure `C'). It was challenged in appeal no.130 to 138 before the Commissioner (Appeals), Central Excise and Customs, Ahmedabad with stay application no. 260 to 268 of 2001 wherein the Commissioner (Appeals) passed an order dated 19.09.2001 directing the petitioner to deposit 90% of the amount of demand within one month and directed the Assistant Commissioner/Deputy Commissioner to provide the appellants all the material evidence and directed the petitioner to file reply thereafter (Annexure `D'). The petitioner, thereafter, filed modification application which was rejected by Commissioner (Appeals) by his common order dated 18.03.2002 (Annexure `E'). Thereafter, a letter dated 27.03.2002 was addressed by the petitioner to the Commissioner (Appeals) requesting him to take up his matter for final hearing without insisting for pre-deposit (Annexure `F').

(3.) However, the Commissioner (Appeals) dismissed the appeals of the petitioner and others for non-deposit of the amount as ordered in stay applications on 14.06.2002 (Annexure `G').