UNIVERSAL CAPSULES LTD. Vs. CCE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) On hearing Shri Pujari for the applicants and Shri Sarkar for the Revenue, it appeared that the appeals themselves could be disposed of at this stage. This was done after granting the prayer for waiver of pre -deposit made in these applications.

(2.) The appellants manufactured hard gelatine capsules. The filed 10 refund claims for the sum of Rs. 2,03,330.60/ - in terms of Section 173L of the Central Excise Rules, 1944. The jurisdictional Asstt. Commissioner vide his letter F. No. V(96)/18 -55/88, dated 20.07.1993 sanctioned the claim and permitted the present appellants to take credit of Rs. 1,54.372/ - to their RG 23A Part -II register. The Jurisdictional Commissioner reviewed this order and caused 10 applications to be filed before the Collector of Central Excise (Appeals) in terms of the powers vested in him under Section 35E(2) of the Central Excise Act, 1944. In the case of 5 refund claims, the applications made specific allegations and recountal of the various defects in the claim of the assessees were made. In addition, three general claims were made viz. that the aspect of unjust enrichment had not been taken into account, that the requirement of the refund amount not exceed the duty payable was not taken into account, and that the Form V register was not maintained in such a manner to show the receipt of the goods, reprocessing undertaken thereupon etc. The Commissioner (Appeals) granted permission to the assessee to state their case. The assessee replied to the general questions and also cited a number of Judgements in their favour. The Commissioner did not cover the specific points raised by the Asstt. Collector in the applications made before the Commissioner (Appeals). On recording the various pleas made by the appellants before him, the Commissioner made the following observations: I have carefully considered the submissions made in the appeal submissions as well as at the time of personal hearing filed by the respondents. They produced before me Form V register. I have perused the entries made in the said register and found that it was incomplete in as much as the relevant column Nos. 12 and 13 were not filled up. There was no mention of reprocess done on the rejected goods. It is also seen that on separate accounts of reprocessed goods was maintained either in the daily production report or in the RG Register. It is mixed with the Daily routine production. Apart from this, it is also found that there are no original duty paying documents on the respondents record. Thus, it appears that modvat aspect on the same has also not been verified by the Assistant Collector. Thus, the contentions made in the aforesaid ten departmental appeals are very much correct.

(3.) On his allowing the appeals, the assessees have filed these appeals.