KEDAK NATH GOENKA Vs. SUPERINTENDENT OF CENTRAL EXCISE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The five petitioners and the opposite party No. 3 are Directors of Messrs Premier Irrigation Equipment (Private) Limited having its registered office at 17/1C, Alipore Road, Calcutta-27 and its factory at Boral in the District of 24 Parganas. The company is licensed under the Central Excise Rules to manufacture aluminium tubes from aluminium strips.

(2.) On March 10, 1978 the Superintendent of Central Excise, Centralised Preventive Organisation, Calcutta, filed a petition of complaint in the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Alipore, 24 Parganas, against the petitioners and the opposite party no. 3 alleging inter alia, that on November 10, 1974 when officers of the Centralised Preventive Organisat on visited the factory of the company at Boral and verified the stock of aluminium pipes lying in the approved store-room, he detected a shortage of 30,688.5 metres of pipes of different sizes valued at Rs. 10,78,498.57 p. and involving Central Excise duty of Rs. 4,31,399.37 p. It was further alleged that when on November 11, 1974 the officers of the said organisation searched the factory and the headoffice of the company, they found in the factory that 38,998.5 metres of aluminium pipes valued at Rs. 12,66,638.54 p. and involving Central Excise duty of Rs. 5,06.653/-had been stored in an open yard outside the approved store-room without an account being kept in the statutory register of the company and that on search of the headoffice records and documents were seized which revealed that during the period between January 1, 1973 to November 10, 1974 the company had manufactured and removed from its factory a total quantity of 1,12,739.8 metres of aluminium pipes valued at Rs. 22,05,971.55 p. and involving basic and auxiliary duty amounting to Rs. 8,82,388.61 p. and there was no account for the same in the statutory records, and that the central excise duty leviable thereon had not been determined and paid.

(3.) The petitioners and the opposite party No. 3 were sought to be implicated for the commission of an offence under Section 9 of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 (hereinafter the Act) inasmuch as they were held to be responsible to the company for the conduct of the business of the company at the relevant time when the offence was committed.