Can the extended period of limitation under the Central Excise Act, 1944 be denied where suppression of facts with an intention to evade payment of duty is found?
Coram: Justice N.Mala · Justice G. Jayachandran
No. Where the Original Authority, after elaborate discussion of each of the aspects of Section 11A, records a finding of fact that there was deliberate suppression of facts with an intention to evade payment of duty and rejects the plea of bona fide belief, and no justifiable reasons are given to overturn that finding, a bare conclusion that the demand is hit by time-bar is patently unreasonable and Section 11A is rightly invoked.
Central Excise Act, 1944 — s.35G(1) — s.11A — s.11AC — Revenue neutrality — CENVAT credit on CVD debited in DEPB scrips — Extended period of limitation — Penalty and interest — Central Excise Act, 1944 — s.35G(1) — Maintainability — Excisability not in issue where finding unchallenged — Held: Where an assessee confines its challenge before the Tribunal to revenue neutrality and does not assail the findings on manufacture and excisability, those findings attain finality and the statutory bar on appeal is not attracted. (¶10) Central Excise Act, 1944 — Revenue neutrality — CENVAT credit on CVD debited in DEPB scrips — Held further: CENVAT credit is not available where the additional duty was paid merely by debit in the DEPB scrips and not in cash. A finding of revenue neutrality resting on no independent finding of the Tribunal is palpably perverse. (¶16, 17) Central Excise Act, 1944 — s.11A — Extended period of limitation — Suppression of facts — Held further: Where the Original Authority records deliberate suppression of facts with an intention to evade payment of duty and rejects the plea of bona fide belief, the extended period of limitation is rightly invoked. (¶23, 24) Central Excise Act, 1944 — s.11AC — Penalty and interest — Findings of fact not interfered with — Held further: Findings of fact recording contravention of the Central Excise Rules, 2002 and liability to deterrent penalty and interest call for no interference in the absence of perversity. Appeal allowed. (¶25, 27)
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