Successor in trade liability cannot arise from mere purchase of premises, and amended excise recovery cannot apply retrospectively.

A subsequent purchaser of premises was not treated as a successor in trade for central excise recovery because there was no transfer of the business, undertaking, or continuity of the defaulting unit. Mere purchase or occupation of land and building was insufficient to fasten the predecessor's duty liability. The amended Section 11 recovery provision, which enabled recovery from a successor from 10-09-2004, was also held inapplicable to a duty demand already confirmed in 1992. The amendment could not operate retrospectively against pre-amendment crystallised dues, so recovery against the purchaser was unsustainable.

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Issues: (i) Whether the appellant, as a subsequent purchaser of the premises, could be treated as a successor in trade of the defaulting assessee for recovery of central excise dues. (ii) Whether the amended recovery provision in Section 11 of the Central Excise Act could be invoked for dues that had been confirmed long before the amendment.

Issue (i): Whether the appellant, as a subsequent purchaser of the premises, could be treated as a successor in trade of the defaulting assessee for recovery of central excise dues.

Analysis: The appellant was found to be only a later purchaser of the land and building after multiple intervening transfers, with no showing that it had taken over the business of the defaulting unit. Mere occupation or acquisition of the premises did not establish succession in trade. The recovery record also did not show merger, continuation of the same business, or any legally identifiable transfer of the original undertaking to the appellant.

Conclusion: The appellant was not a successor in trade and could not be fastened with the predecessor's duty liability on that basis.

Issue (ii): Whether the amended recovery provision in Section 11 of the Central Excise Act could be invoked for dues that had been confirmed long before the amendment.

Analysis: The amendment to Section 11 enabling recovery from a successor was brought into force only from 10-09-2004. The duty demand in question had already been confirmed in 1992. The amended provision was therefore held inapplicable to the old and already crystallised demand, and the earlier recovery precedent under the erstwhile rule did not govern the amended statutory position.

Conclusion: The amended Section 11 could not be applied retrospectively to recover the 1992 dues from the appellant.

Final Conclusion: The recovery action against the appellant was unsustainable in law, and the demand could not be enforced against it as a successor.

Ratio Decidendi: A mere subsequent transfer of premises does not make the transferee a successor in trade for excise recovery, and an amendment creating successor liability cannot be applied retrospectively to pre-amendment confirmed dues.

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