Special Additional Duty refund: originals and minor description mismatch were not fatal where tax payment and sales correlation were proved.

Refund of Special Additional Duty under Notification No. 102/2007-Cus. was stated to be supportable on copies of relevant import and sale records where a Chartered Accountant's certificate and statutory audit evidence correlated the imported goods with subsequent sales and VAT payment. The original documents were not treated as an inflexible precondition when the refund claim was otherwise substantiated. A discrepancy between the descriptions in the Bills of Entry and the sales invoices, such as LDPE and LLDPE, was not regarded as fatal where the substantive refund conditions were met and the goods could be correlated. The commentary concludes that denial of refund on those grounds was unjustified.

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Issues: Whether refund of Special Additional Duty under Notification No. 102/2007-Cus. could be denied for non-production of original Bills of Entry and TR-6 challans and for mismatch in the description of goods between the Bills of Entry and the sales invoices when Chartered Accountant and statutory audit certificates evidenced payment of VAT and correlation of the imports with subsequent sales.

Analysis: The refund notification did not require production of original documents as an inflexible condition when the claim was otherwise supported by copies of the relevant records and by a Chartered Accountant's certificate. The circular governing such refunds accepted a statutory auditor or Chartered Accountant certificate correlating payment of tax on the imported goods with the sale invoices in lieu of the originals. The record also showed that the sales summary against each Bill of Entry was certified by the Chartered Accountant and the Commercial Tax Officer, and that VAT payment on the sale invoices had been taken on record by the original authority. On the description issue, the difference between LDPE and LLDPE was not treated as fatal where the imported goods and the goods sold were otherwise correlated and the substantive refund conditions stood satisfied.

Conclusion: Denial of refund on the grounds of non-production of original Bills of Entry and TR-6 challans and mismatch in description was not justified; the assessee was entitled to refund, while the Revenue's challenge failed.

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