Refund claims filed through a subordinate officer are not time-barred where the statute does not prescribe a rigid mode of presentation.

A refund claim addressed to the competent Assistant Collector was not time-barred merely because it was routed through the Superintendent of Central Excise and reached the Assistant Collector after the limitation period. The statutory scheme required the refund application to be made to the proper authority, but did not prescribe a rigid mode of physical presentation; the delay in onward transmission was treated as procedural and could not defeat a claim otherwise lodged within time. No estoppel arose to override the statute, because the method adopted did not contravene the statutory requirement governing presentation of the refund application.

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Issues: (i) Whether a refund claim addressed to the Assistant Collector but filed through the Superintendent of Central Excise within limitation could be treated as time-barred when received by the Assistant Collector after expiry of the prescribed period. (ii) Whether estoppel could operate against the statutory requirement governing the presentation of a refund claim.

Issue (i): Whether a refund claim addressed to the Assistant Collector but filed through the Superintendent of Central Excise within limitation could be treated as time-barred when received by the Assistant Collector after expiry of the prescribed period.

Analysis: Section 11B of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 and Rule 173S of the Central Excise Rules, 1944 require an application for refund to be made to the Assistant Collector, but they do not prescribe a rigid mode of physical filing. The filing of an application addressed to the competent authority through a subordinate officer was treated as a procedural matter. The delay in onward transmission by the Superintendent could not defeat a substantive refund claim otherwise lodged within time.

Conclusion: The claim was not liable to be rejected as time-barred merely because it reached the Assistant Collector after the limitation period.

Issue (ii): Whether estoppel could operate against the statutory requirement governing the presentation of a refund claim.

Analysis: The statutory language required only the making of an application for refund and did not make filing before the Assistant Collector in person a mandatory condition. Since the defect, if any, was only procedural, no estoppel arose to validate a course contrary to statute; instead, the procedure adopted through the Superintendent did not infringe the statutory scheme.

Conclusion: No estoppel against the statute arose on the facts, and the refund claim could not be defeated on that ground.

Final Conclusion: The reference application failed because the Tribunal's earlier view that the refund claim was maintainable and not barred by limitation was upheld.

Ratio Decidendi: A refund claim addressed to the competent authority is not defeated by limitation merely because it is routed through a subordinate officer, where the statute prescribes the authority to receive the application but not the mode of physical presentation.

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