Excise refund claims must be tested under amended Section 11B and unjust enrichment before fresh adjudication of the disputed amount.

The surviving excise duty refund claim had to be examined under the amended refund regime in Section 11B of the Central Excise Act, including the bar of unjust enrichment. The refund already granted and not challenged had attained finality, so only the remaining disputed amount required fresh determination. The assessee was entitled to establish its eligibility for refund under the governing law before that claim was decided. The impugned orders were set aside only to the extent they concerned the surviving refund amount, and the matter was remitted for fresh adjudication in accordance with the applicable statutory framework.

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Issues: Whether the surviving refund claim for duty was required to be determined under Section 11B of the Central Excise Act, 1944 as amended, including the plea of unjust enrichment, and whether the matter should be remitted for fresh decision on that limited amount.

Analysis: The refund dispute was confined only to the amount that remained in controversy, since the refund already granted and not challenged had attained finality. The surviving claim had to be examined in the light of the amended statutory refund regime, under which the assessee was entitled to an opportunity to establish entitlement to refund in accordance with the law governing unjust enrichment.

Conclusion: The impugned orders were set aside to the extent they related to the surviving refund amount, and the matter was remitted to the Assistant Collector for fresh adjudication of that claim in accordance with the governing law.

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