Settled issue doctrine and excisability tests barred fresh duty notices for a turnkey plant project.

Repeated show cause notices on an issue already concluded between the same parties are not permissible when there is no material change in facts or law. The text also states that erection, fabrication and commissioning of a turnkey coal handling plant did not result in excisable goods, because excise applies only to movable and marketable goods, and the plant was treated as immovable property incapable of being bought and sold as such. Duty-paid bought out items used in the project did not alter that result. Accordingly, the demand was stated to fail on both the settled-issue principle and the absence of manufacture of excisable goods.

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Issues: (i) Whether show cause notices raising the same controversy as earlier adjudicated proceedings, without any material change in facts or law, could be issued again for subsequent periods; (ii) Whether erection, fabrication and commissioning of a turnkey coal handling plant, together with duty-paid bought out items used in the project, resulted in excisable goods liable to central excise duty.

Issue (i): Whether show cause notices raising the same controversy as earlier adjudicated proceedings, without any material change in facts or law, could be issued again for subsequent periods.

Analysis: Where a fundamental aspect has been conclusively decided between the same parties in earlier proceedings and the factual and legal position remains unchanged, the revenue cannot repeatedly reopen the same controversy merely because a different period is involved. The earlier adjudications in the assessee's own case had accepted the position that the same activity and items were not liable to duty, and the absence of any effective rebuttal to that factual assertion meant the department could not depart from the settled position.

Conclusion: The repeated issuance of show cause notices on the same settled issue was impermissible and was against the revenue.

Issue (ii): Whether erection, fabrication and commissioning of a turnkey coal handling plant, together with duty-paid bought out items used in the project, resulted in excisable goods liable to central excise duty.

Analysis: Excise duty is attracted only when excisable goods are manufactured, and goods must be movable and marketable. Applying the tests of marketability, movability and capability of being bought and sold as such, the plant in question was found to be an immovable property, incapable of being marketed or sold in the same form, and therefore not goods within the meaning of the excise law. The earlier Tribunal findings in the assessee's own case on identical facts supported this conclusion, and the circular relied upon by the revenue could not override those findings.

Conclusion: The turnkey project, including erection, fabrication and commissioning charges and duty-paid bought out items, was not liable to excise duty and the finding was in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The Court held that the controversy was already concluded on identical facts and that the impugned notices could not survive, since no excisable goods emerged from the turnkey project and the same duty demand could not be revived for later periods without any change in circumstances.

Ratio Decidendi: In the absence of any material change in facts or law, a matter conclusively decided in earlier proceedings between the same parties cannot be reopened for a later period, and an assembled plant that is immovable and not marketable does not constitute excisable goods.

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