DARSHAN INDUSTRIES Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY way of this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner has prayed for an appropriate writ or order for quashing and setting aside the order No. C -III/2002/WZB/2003, dated 30 -9 -2003 (Annexure -E) [ : 2004 (178) E.L.T. 345 (Tri. -Mum.)] by holding and declaring that the petitioners were entitled to avail credit of Rs. 1,28,117/ -. The facts leading to the filing of the Special Civil Application in nutshell are that the petitioner Firm is engaged in the business of manufacturing texturised yarns using Partially Oriented Yarn (POY) as input. In the month of April, 1994, the petitioner purchased yarns from three different dealers, who were dealers and agents of M/s. Baroda Rayon Corporation Ltd. of Surat, a manufacturer of POY. It is the case of the petitioner that the petitioner -Company was given original invoices issued by the manufacturers with endorsement of the above dealers that yarn was sold to the petitioner by them and also bills/invoices of the dealers for the said yarn sold by them to the petitioner for which the petitioner took credit of Rs. 1,28,117/ - which were duties actually paid by the manufacturer - M/s. Baroda Rayon on POY purchased by the petitioner from the above dealers. The petitioner filed return for April, 1994 and reported all the above transactions to the Central Excise authorities. Thereafter, a show cause notice was issued to the petitioner, denying the above credit of Rs. 1,28,117/ -, solely on the ground that the invoices of manufacturer Baroda Rayon were not in the name of the petitioner, but, were in the names of the dealers, who had endorsed the invoices in favour of the petitioner, and, as such, such documents were not admissible for Modvat credit. Then, the Assistant Commissioner of Central Excise passed an order denying the credit on 28 -2 -1996.

(2.) FEELING aggrieved and dissatisfied by the order passed by the Assistant Commissioner denying the credit, the petitioner preferred an appeal before the Commissioner (Appeals), who rejected the appeal of the petitioner by order dated 20 -11 -1997 on the ground that the endorsed invoices were not valid documents with effect from 1 -4 -1994.

(3.) FEELING aggrieved and dissatisfied with the aforesaid three orders, more particularly, the order passed by the learned Tribunal (Annexure -E), the petitioner has preferred the present Special Civil Application under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.