Mutually exclusive excise exemptions bar concurrent availment when the amended notification prohibits using both in one financial year.

An amended central excise exemption notification expressly barred its benefit where the assessee had already availed Notification No. 1/93 during the same financial year. The two exemption schemes were therefore not concurrently available, and earlier Tribunal decisions on alternative exemption choices did not apply because the amended notification created an explicit mutual-exclusion condition. The operative effect was that an assessee could not claim both concessions, or switch between them, within the same financial year; the duty demand was consequently sustained on that basis.

---

---

Issues: Whether the assessee could avail the benefit of Notification No. 1/93-Central Excise and Notification No. 22/94 during the same financial year.

Analysis: Notification No. 22/94, as amended on 16.03.1995, specifically provided that its exemption would not apply where the assessee had availed Notification No. 1/93 during the course of the same financial year. The two notifications were therefore not simultaneously available. The earlier Tribunal decisions relied upon by the assessee applied only where multiple exemption schemes were genuinely open for choice, which was not the position here because the amended notification created an express bar against concurrent availment.

Conclusion: The assessee was not entitled to claim both notifications in the same financial year, and the duty demand was rightly confirmed.

Final Conclusion: The appeal succeeded, and the Revenue's demand was sustained because the exemption notifications were mutually exclusive for the relevant year.

Ratio Decidendi: Where an exemption notification is expressly amended to deny its benefit to an assessee who has availed another specified exemption during the same financial year, the assessee cannot claim both concessions or switch between them within that year.

---