JAYANT AGRO ORGANICS LIMITED Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has challenged an order-inoriginal dated 29.01.2018 under which the adjudicating authority, i.e. the Development Commissioner, Kandla Special Economic Zone, directed the petitioner to deposit a sum of Rs.6,19,160/- in the Government account. He also imposed a penalty of Rs.1,00,000/- on the petitioner.

(2.) The brief facts are as under;

(3.) In case of another similar EOU, a question came up before this Court in the case of Asahi Songwon Colors Ltd. v. U.O.I. reported in, 2017 356 ELT 532 (Guj) whether in respect of purchases made by the Unit not from a Unit constituted as an EOU but from a DTA, sales tax refund benefit would be available ? In such case, the assessee was granted refund of CST. However, many years later, the authorities sought to recover the same, which action, the petitioner had challenged before the High Court. The High Court had come to two conclusions, firstly, that the CST refund benefit would be available to an EOU even if the production was made from a DTA Unit and secondly, that after having processed and paid the refund of such tax, the same could not have been recovered after an unreasonably long period of time. In the context of the latter issue, the Court held and observed as under;