Government Upholds Order Allowing Rebate, Stresses Export Encouragement, Denial of Justice

The Government upheld the order-in-appeal allowing rebate to a party, emphasizing the importance of encouraging exports and stating that denying rebate would be a denial of justice. The review proceedings were dropped, and six revision applications were successful, with instructions for scrutiny and sanction by the Assistant Collector if in order.

---

---

Issues involved: Review Proposal initiated under Government of India show cause notice and Six Revision Applications filed by the same party against order-in-appeal.

In the case of the review proposal, the Collector (Appeals) had allowed the party's appeal, setting aside the order disallowing rebate on the ground that the identity of goods exported could not be correlated with those cleared from the factory after payment of duty. The Collector concluded that the goods mentioned in the documents were not different, and allowed the appeal without specifically addressing the other aspect. However, in subsequent matters, the Collector held that merchant exporters who did not manufacture the goods or pay excise duty were not entitled to rebate on exported goods.

Upon reviewing the case records, the Government noted that there was no prohibition on merchant exporters receiving rebate if the AR 4A procedure was followed and manufacturers certified no objection to refunding excise duty to the exporter. The Government also referenced circulars permitting rebates to exporters even if duty was paid by manufacturers. Recognizing the importance of encouraging exports, the Government decided to uphold the order-in-appeal and allow the rebate, stating that denying rebate in such cases would be a denial of justice. Consequently, the review proceedings were dropped, and the order-in-appeal was upheld. The six revision applications filed by the Respondents were also successful, with instructions for the Assistant Collector to scrutinize and sanction them if in order.

---