Area-based excise exemption survives change in ownership when entitlement had already accrued before the transfer.

A unit already enjoying area-based excise exemption under Notification No. 50/2003-C.E. does not lose that benefit merely because ownership changes, if entitlement had accrued before transfer. The factual record showed the exemption was available to the unit before it was transferred, and the earlier remand was confined to verifying that fact. The court also noted that the circular relied upon recognised that a change in ownership or factory premises, by itself, does not disqualify an existing beneficiary from the area-based exemption. The denial of exemption was therefore unjustified and the appeal failed.

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Issues: Whether a unit that was already availing area based exemption could continue to enjoy the exemption after transfer of ownership, and whether the Revenue could deny the benefit on that ground.

Analysis: The unit had been found, on the factual record, to be availing exemption under Notification No. 50/2003-C.E. before it was transferred to the respondent. The earlier remand was only for verification of that factual aspect, and the subsequent findings consistently held that the exemption was already available to the unit at the time of transfer. The circular relied upon also recognized that a mere change of ownership or factory premises does not, by itself, disqualify the unit from the area based exemption once the exemption had already attached.

Conclusion: The transfer of the unit did not take away the existing area based exemption, and the denial of benefit to the respondent was not justified.

Final Conclusion: The appeal was rejected because the exemption had already accrued to the unit before transfer and continued notwithstanding the change in ownership.

Ratio Decidendi: Where area based exemption is already being enjoyed by a unit, a subsequent change of ownership does not by itself extinguish that benefit if the factual entitlement existed before transfer.

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