Self-assessment refund claims are maintainable without prior challenge, and authorities must decide them on merits.

Under the amended Customs Act regime, self-assessment is treated as part of assessment, and a refund claim for duty paid or borne is maintainable without first obtaining reversal or modification of the assessment order. The earlier pre-amendment rule on refund after assessment was held inapplicable to the revised framework. The refund authority must examine a properly filed application on merits and cannot return it as premature merely because no prior challenge to the assessment has been made. The court set aside the impugned order and directed fresh consideration of the refund claims after hearing the assessee.

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Issues: Whether, after the 2011 amendments to the customs assessment and refund provisions, an importer who paid duty under self-assessment could straightaway seek refund without first obtaining modification or reversal of the assessment order, and whether the refund applications could be returned as premature.

Analysis: The amended scheme of the Customs Act, 1962 replaced compulsory officer-assessment with self-assessment, while retaining the power of the proper officer to verify, re-assess and, where re-assessment is not accepted, to pass a speaking order. The definition of assessment was expanded to include self-assessment, and the amended refund provision allowed refund claims where duty had been paid or borne, without conditioning maintainability on a prior appeal against an assessment order. The earlier ratio concerning refund after assessment, rendered in the pre-amendment setting, could not govern the post-amendment regime. The Court also held that once a refund application is filed in the prescribed manner, the authority must decide it on merits and cannot avoid adjudication by merely returning it as premature. The refusal to process the claims also entailed civil consequences and could not stand when no defect in the applications was shown.

Conclusion: The refund applications were not liable to be returned as premature, and the petitioner was entitled to have them considered on merits. The issue was decided in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The impugned order was set aside and the matter was remitted to the customs authorities to decide the refund applications afresh in accordance with law after granting a personal hearing.

Ratio Decidendi: Under the amended customs regime, a refund claim based on duty paid or borne after self-assessment is maintainable without a prior challenge to the self-assessment order, and the refund authority must adjudicate the application on merits rather than return it as premature.

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