Set-off of excise dues requires the same legal person; predecessor liabilities cannot be recovered from a successor's rebate.

Statutory adjustment of excise dues is permissible only when the amount payable and the amount recoverable belong to the same person. On the stated facts, a predecessor company's liabilities could not be set off against rebate payable to a successor company because the two were distinct legal entities. Prior shareholding or corporate linkage did not convert the rebate due to the successor into a sum due to the predecessor. Rule 230(2) of the Central Excise Rules, 1944 did not alter this position, so recovery from the successor's rebate was not justified.

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Issues: Whether dues recoverable from a predecessor company could be adjusted against rebate amounts payable to a successor company under Section 11 of the Central Excise Act, 1944 read with Rule 230(2) of the Central Excise Rules, 1944.

Analysis: Section 11 permits adjustment only where the amounts payable and recoverable are in the hands of the same person. The successor company and the predecessor company were distinct legal entities, and the fact that the predecessor had earlier held a shareholding interest in the joint venture did not make the rebate payable to the successor company a sum due to the predecessor. Rule 230(2) of the Central Excise Rules, 1944 did not assist the Revenue on these facts, and the cited precedent was distinguishable.

Conclusion: The adjustment was impermissible, and recovery of the predecessor's dues from the respondent's rebate was rightly disallowed.

Final Conclusion: The appeal failed because no substantial question of law arose from the Tribunal's order.

Ratio Decidendi: Statutory adjustment of dues is permissible only when the payable amount and the recoverable demand belong to the same person; liabilities of one distinct legal entity cannot be recovered from amounts payable to another merely because of corporate succession or prior shareholding linkage.

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