Refund under exemption notification cannot be denied by adding a consumer-pass-on condition absent from the text.

Refund of central excise duty could not be denied on the ground that the duty burden had not been passed on to consumers, because the relevant exemption notification contained no such condition. The rejection of the refund claim on that basis was held unsustainable, and the claim was required to be examined on its own merits. A refund under an exemption notification cannot be refused by importing a condition not found in the notification itself.

---

---

Issues: Whether refund of central excise duty could be denied on the ground that the refund had not been passed on to consumers, when the relevant exemption notification contained no such condition.

Analysis: The refund claim was rejected by the lower authority on the footing that refund would arise only if the duty had been passed on to consumers. The appellate authority held that this was not a legally sustainable basis because Notification No. 92/70-C.E. dated 1-5-1970, as amended by Notification No. 101/72 dated 17-3-1972, did not prescribe any condition that refund would depend upon passing on the duty burden to consumers.

Conclusion: The objection based on passing on of duty to consumers was rejected, and the refund claim was required to be examined on merits.

Ratio Decidendi: A refund claim under an exemption notification cannot be refused on a condition not found in the notification itself.

---