Accounting regularisation under excise law upheld where substance over form gave effect to an earlier appellate entitlement.

An assessee's entitlement under an earlier appellate order was implemented through correction of an accounting mistake, with the Tribunal treating the transfer from the personal ledger account to the RG-23 account as a permissible regularisation rather than an impermissible relaxation of excise law. Although a direct statutory transfer in the manner later proposed was not allowed under Rule 57H(3), the adjustment was viewed as giving effect to the earlier order and restoring the benefit that should have operated when the notification was in force. The Tribunal applied substance over form and held that the reference raised no referable question of law.

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Issues: Whether the transfer of credit from the personal ledger account to the RG-23 account and its utilisation could be regularised by a deemed accounting adjustment, and whether the Tribunal's earlier order gave rise to any referable question of law.

Analysis: The disputed amount was not actually lying in the RG-23A account, but in the personal ledger account, after an accounting mistake by the assessee. The earlier appellate direction had already required the amount to be placed in the RG-23 account and then used for payment of duty, and the later dispute arose only because of delay and mistaken insistence on further permission. The direct transfer ordered by the Collector (Appeals) in 1990 was not permissible under Rule 57H(3), but the Tribunal held that the correct approach was to treat the matter as an accounting regularisation. The adjustment was intended to give effect to the earlier appellate order and to restore the benefit that should have been available when the notification was in force. The Tribunal applied the distinction between form and substance and treated the procedural requirement as one capable of being implemented by a proper accounting exercise.

Conclusion: The deemed transfer and accounting regularisation were upheld as permissible, the reference was found to raise no question of law, and the application was rejected.

Final Conclusion: The Tribunal maintained the earlier relief in substance while rejecting the challenge to its legality, holding that the matter involved only implementation of an accounting adjustment and not an impermissible relaxation of the excise law.

Ratio Decidendi: Where an assessee's entitlement under an earlier appellate order can be effectuated only by correcting an accounting mistake, the Tribunal may treat the matter as a procedural regularisation and apply the principle of substance over form, even though a direct statutory transfer in the manner later suggested is not permissible.

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