Specified-duty notices are mandatory under excise recovery rules; failure to quantify the demand invalidates the recovery.

A demand for differential excise duty cannot be sustained where Rule 10 requires the show cause notice to specify the exact amount sought to be recovered, and the appellate order must also determine that amount. Here, the notice only proposed reclassification and recovery for a period without quantifying the duty, leaving the assessee to infer the liability. The appellate order likewise upheld recovery without stating the sum payable. Because fiscal provisions require strict compliance and ambiguity must be resolved in favour of the taxpayer, the non-specification of the amount rendered the notice and consequential demand invalid.

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Issues: Whether the demand of differential excise duty could be sustained when the show cause notice and the appellate order did not specify the amount demanded as required by Rule 10 of the Central Excise Rules.

Analysis: Rule 10 required the proper officer to serve notice calling upon the assessee to show cause why a specified amount should not be paid, and the amount determined by the authority could not exceed the amount stated in the notice. The notice in question only proposed reclassification and recovery of duty for a period, but did not state any quantified amount. That left the assessee to conjecture and calculation, which defeated the object of the rule. The appellate order also failed to determine and specify the amount payable, and merely upheld recovery for a period without stating the sum due. Fiscal provisions of this kind must be strictly complied with, and any ambiguity is to be resolved in favour of the citizen.

Conclusion: The show cause notice and the impugned orders did not comply with Rule 10 and the demand could not be sustained. The challenge succeeded in favour of the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a recovery provision requires a notice to specify the exact amount sought to be recovered, non-specification of that amount renders the notice and consequential demand invalid.

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