Substantial compliance with SAD refund endorsement requirements preserves refund despite non-exact invoice wording.

Refund of Special Additional Duty under Notification No. 102/2007-Cus. was treated as admissible where the invoices carried an endorsement stating that no SAD credit would be available to the buyer. The substantive requirement in paragraph 2(b) was that the buyer should not receive such credit, and the text notes that this object was achieved despite the endorsement not following the exact wording prescribed in the notification. The deviation in language was treated as procedural, and prior Tribunal decisions were relied on to support substantial compliance. The refund was therefore not to be denied merely for non-exact phrasing in the invoice endorsement.

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Issues: Whether refund of Special Additional Duty under Notification No. 102/2007-Cus. could be denied merely because the invoice endorsement was not in the exact format prescribed in the notification.

Analysis: The condition in paragraph 2(b) of the notification required an endorsement that no credit of SAD would be available to the buyer. The invoices in question contained an endorsement conveying that no such credit would be available. The object of the condition was thus achieved. The form of words used in the endorsement was held to be a procedural matter, and prior Tribunal decisions had treated similar compliance as sufficient where the substantive requirement was satisfied.

Conclusion: The refund could not be denied on the ground of deviation in language, as the endorsement on the invoices satisfied the notification condition. The issue was decided in favour of the assessee.

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