Central Excise Act 1944
7 articles
Priority Is Not Purity: Madras High Court Holds a SARFAESI Auction Purchaser Must Clear a Known Excise Attachment Before the Encumbrance Entry Is Removed
A bank sold a mortgaged property under SARFAESI with a Central Excise attachment disclosed as a known encumbrance, then asked the High Court to have the entry struck from the encumbrance certificate. The Division Bench refused: priority over Crown dues is settled, but Rule 9 of the Security Interest (Enforcement) Rules, 2002 is mandatory.
15 min readBagasse Is Not 'Manufactured': CESTAT Hyderabad Applies DSCL Sugar to Quash an ₹80.28 Lakh Cenvat Credit Demand Against Gayatri Sugars
A decade after the Supreme Court in Union of India v. DSCL Sugar Ltd. settled that bagasse is agricultural waste and not the result of any manufacturing process, sugar mills are still fighting the same demand under Rule 6(3) of the Cenvat Credit Rules. CESTAT Hyderabad's Final Order in Gayatri Sugars shows why the point keeps recurring — and what it takes to close it out on appeal.
14 min readStatement First, Cross-Examination Second: CESTAT Allahabad Invokes Section 9D of the Central Excise Act to Quash a ₹2.39 Crore Cenvat Credit Fraud Demand Against Rathi Steel and Power
A Ghaziabad steel manufacturer was one of 68 noticees accused of availing Cenvat credit on cenvatable invoices issued without any actual supply of copper scrap. The Customs, Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal set aside the ₹2.39 crore demand confirmed against it, holding that the adjudicating authority relied on third-party statements without following Section 9D of the Central Excise Act's mandatory procedure for admitting them in evidence, treated a co-noticee's settlement under an amnesty scheme as proof against unrelated parties, and confirmed the demand through generic findings that never engaged the appellant's own case.
14 min readJudicial Discipline Binds the Revenue Too: Delhi High Court Quashes a GST Demand That Defied a Binding CESTAT Refund Order
Welspring Universal was handed a Rs. 76,72,000 demand for a CENVAT refund the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal had already held it was entitled to keep, on limitation grounds the Tribunal had already rejected. The Delhi High Court quashed the demand, holding that a departmental adjudicating authority cannot treat a superior appellate order as though it does not exist merely because a parallel proceeding remains formally open.
14 min readDepartmental Knowledge Defeats the Extended Period: Calcutta High Court Quashes a Central Excise Demand Founded on the Assessee's Own Cost Audit Report
Hindalco Industries faced a Central Excise demand of Rs. 6,29,920 built entirely on its own Cost Audit Report, three years after departmental officers had personally witnessed the very stock shortages now called suppression. The Calcutta High Court held the extended period of limitation unavailable: what the proviso to Section 11A requires is a deliberate act of concealment by the assessee, not the mere absence of departmental knowledge, and a demand cannot simultaneously rest on a statutory record and be founded on its suppression.
13 min readConsistency Is Sacrosanct in Revenue Matters: Bombay High Court Bars a Rs. 21.92 Crore Service Tax Demand the Department Had Already Dropped Against an Identically Placed Assessee
A show cause notice issued roughly two years after the transactions it targeted, confirming Rs. 21.92 crore in service tax, interest and penalty on a brewery's contract-bottling arrangement with its brand owner. The Bombay High Court's Aurangabad Bench dismissed the Revenue's appeal against the Tribunal's finding that the demand was time-barred, holding that the extended period of limitation cannot be invoked without a specific averment of fraud or suppression in the show cause notice, and that the Department could not press an appeal against one assessee after having accepted an identical Tribunal order in favour of another.
14 min readEighty Percent Sugar, No Marketability Defence: CESTAT Holds Captively Consumed Sugar Syrup Dutiable Even Though the Biscuits It Went Into Were Exempt
A biscuit manufacturer argued its captively consumed sugar syrup, made to a proprietary formula and never sold, was not 'goods' at all. Thirteen years after the show cause notice, CESTAT Ahmedabad disagreed, applying the Supreme Court's marketability test and a bright-line sugar-content threshold from tribunal precedent, while remanding to let the company claim Cenvat credit on the inputs consumed.
14 min read