UMAJI OVERSEAS Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Appeal is directed against an order passed by the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal calling upon the Appellant to deposit an amount of Rs. 9.5 crores within a period of four weeks. The order was passed on an application for waiver of pre-deposit.

(2.) The Commissioner of Central Excise made a demand for duty of Central Excise to the extent of Rs. 37.42 crores from the Appellant. The Appellant is a 100% export oriented unit and had procured raw material indigenously without the payment of Central Excise duty between April 2001 and August 2002. The primary condition of Notification 1/95-C.E. was that indigenously procured raw material has to be used in the manufacture of finished goods for export. The allegation against the Appellant, found to have been established by the Commissioner, was that there was a breach of the conditions attached to the notification and that the raw material was diverted to the local market.

(3.) The contention of the Appellant before the Tribunal and before this Court is that the Appellant had supplied finished goods to certain export oriented units situated at Hyderabad. Among five named EOUs at Hyderabad was a unit by the name of Asharani Garments. According to counsel for the Appellant, the Department had issued a notice to show cause to Asharani Garments as would be evident from paragraph 12.3 of the notice issued to the Appellant on 16 May 2008 (Exhibit 'A'). During the course of the hearing of these proceedings, copies of the notices to show cause that were issued to Asharani Garments have been furnished to counsel for the Appellant together inter alia with a letter dated 15 June 2010, addressed by the Commissioner of Customs and Central Excise, Hyderabad to the Additional Director General, DGCEI, Zonal Unit, Mumbai.