Statutory refund limitation bars delayed excise rebate claims and writ jurisdiction cannot override the one-year time limit.

Section 11B of the Central Excise Act, 1944 requires refund claims for excise duty on exported goods to be filed within one year from the relevant date, and the authority has no express or implied power to entertain a delayed claim. The applications here were filed beyond one year from shipment, so the refund was treated as time-barred. The exceptional relief recognised in the cited precedent was confined to its special facts involving mutual mistake and was not available on these facts. Article 226 could not be invoked to grant rebate contrary to the statutory limitation period.

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Issues: Whether rebate/refund of excise duty on exported goods could be granted when the claim was filed beyond the one-year period prescribed under Section 11B of the Central Excise Act, 1944, and whether writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India could be invoked to bypass that limitation.

Analysis: Section 11B requires a claim for refund of excise duty to be made within one year from the relevant date and does not confer any express or implied power on the authority to entertain a claim filed after that period. The petitioner's applications were admittedly filed beyond one year from the date of shipment. The exceptional relief recognised in the cited precedent was confined to its peculiar facts involving mutual mistake, and no such special circumstance existed here. The refund machinery under the statute therefore governed the claim, and the constitutional writ jurisdiction could not be used to grant rebate contrary to the statutory time limit.

Conclusion: The claim was rightly rejected as time-barred, and the contention for grant of rebate notwithstanding delay was not accepted.

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