Refund limitation under excise law runs from actual duty payment, not later RT-12 assessment or return processing.

Section 11B limitation for refund claims runs from the actual date of payment of duty, not from the date of assessment of the RT-12 return or any later assessment process. The Tribunal treated the phrase "date of payment of duty" as plain and unambiguous, and distinguished section 11B from section 11A, where Parliament expressly tied limitation to the monthly RT-12 return. Duty paid at removal under Rules 9 and 49 was treated as duty, not a provisional deposit. On that basis, the refund claim filed beyond six months was time-barred and rejected.

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Issues: Whether the refund claim was barred by limitation under section 11B of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944, and whether the starting point was the date of payment of duty or the later date of assessment of the monthly RT-12 return.

Analysis: The limitation provision in section 11B uses the expression "the date of payment of duty", which was held to be plain and unambiguous. The Tribunal declined to read it as the date of assessment of duty or the date of assessment of the RT-12 return. It distinguished section 11B from section 11A, where Parliament had specifically linked the limitation period to the monthly RT-12 return. The duty paid at the time of removal under Rules 9 and 49 was treated as duty and not as a mere provisional deposit, and the cited authorities dealing with levy, collection and assessment under the earlier recovery provisions were held inapplicable. The claim filed on 31-10-1985 for the period 1-4-1985 to 27-4-1985 was therefore beyond six months from the relevant date.

Conclusion: The refund claim was time-barred and was rightly rejected; the appeal failed.

Ratio Decidendi: For refund claims under section 11B, the limitation period runs from the actual date of payment of duty, not from the date of assessment of the return or any subsequent assessment process.

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