Compliance with Tribunal stay order makes continued detention of goods and machinery under Rule 230 unjustified.

Compliance with a Tribunal stay order, once duly made and intimated to the department, removes the basis for coercive detention of plant, machinery and goods under Rule 230 of the Central Excise Rules, 1944. Continued detention of factory assets after such compliance is unjustified and cannot survive. The detention order was treated as unsustainable, and release from detention followed.

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Issues: Whether the detention of plant, machinery and goods under Rule 230 of the Central Excise Rules, 1944 was justified after compliance with the Tribunal's stay order.

Analysis: The appellants had placed on record compliance with the Tribunal's stay order and had also informed the departmental about such compliance. In that situation, continued detention of the factory assets and goods was held to be unjustified.

Conclusion: The detention order under Rule 230 of the Central Excise Rules, 1944 was held unsustainable and was vacated in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The departmental detention could not survive once compliance with the subsisting stay order had been made and communicated, and the seized goods and machinery were ordered to be released from detention.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a stay order of the Tribunal has been complied with and the compliance is duly intimated, coercive detention of goods or machinery under Rule 230 is not justified.

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