Excise duty refund later does not exclude it from sale consideration unless the deduction was contemporaneous with the sale.

Excise duty cannot be excluded from sale consideration merely because the amount was refunded later. Where the assessee had already collected the sum as part of the sale price, used it in business, and treated it as part of the transaction, a subsequent reimbursement did not prove that excise duty was never included in the original consideration. The decisive distinction is whether the deduction was contemporaneous with the sale; only an immediate add-back and deduction arrangement shows that the duty never formed part of the price. On these facts, the later refund was insufficient to alter the character of the original sale consideration, and the Revenue's view was sustained.

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Issues: Whether excise duty, though allegedly refunded to buyers at a later stage, could be excluded from the sale consideration for the purpose of assessment.

Analysis: The billing pattern in the cited earlier decision showed that excise duty was added and immediately deducted, so it never formed part of the sale price collected from buyers. In the present matter, the assessee had already realised the amount as sale price, used it in the business, and collected tax on it. A later refund, even if made, was not contemporaneous with the sale transaction and did not by itself establish that the sale consideration originally received excluded excise duty. The surrounding circumstances of the alleged reimbursement were not shown with sufficient clarity.

Conclusion: The later refund did not justify exclusion of excise duty from the sale consideration, and the dismissal of the revision was upheld in favour of the Revenue.

Ratio Decidendi: A subsequent refund of amounts collected towards excise duty does not, by itself, alter the character of the original sale consideration or establish that excise duty was not included in it, unless the deduction is contemporaneous with the sale transaction.

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