CENVAT credit on supporting structures supplied with a plant is admissible when they are not immovable factory-site fabrications.

CENVAT credit on supporting structures supplied as part of a sugar plant was held admissible because the structures were not shown to have been fabricated and embedded at the factory site as immovable property. The reasoning distinguished Saraswati Sugar Mills, which denied credit where inputs were used to make supporting structures at the site and those structures became immovable. Where the structures are supplied as an integral part of the plant, credit cannot be denied merely because they function as supporting structures. The impugned order allowing credit was upheld and the revenue appeal failed.

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Issues: Whether CENVAT credit was admissible on supporting structures supplied as part of the sugar plant, and whether the ruling in Saraswati Sugar Mills applied to deny such credit.

Analysis: The supporting structures were not shown to have been erected in the respondent's factory as fabricated support structures embedded to earth. The decision denying credit in Saraswati Sugar Mills turned on inputs used to fabricate supporting structures at the factory site, which became immovable property. On the facts here, the structures were supplied as part of the sugar plant itself, and the Tribunal followed the view that items purchased as part of the plant are eligible for credit.

Conclusion: The credit was admissible to the respondent, and the denial of CENVAT credit was not sustainable.

Final Conclusion: The impugned order allowing credit was upheld and the revenue appeal failed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where supporting structures are supplied as an integral part of the plant and are not erected at the factory site as immovable structures, CENVAT credit cannot be denied merely on the basis that they are supporting structures.

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