1983 (11) TMI 197

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.... arrive. 2. As the sale and purchase of the benzene was under Chapter X procedure and the clearance was given concessional duty under Notification No. 34/73-C.E., the Assistant Collector of Central Excise, Ernakulam Division, Cochin, began proceedings to demand duty under rule 196 on the 21138 litres of benzene which did not reach destination. The duty demanded was Rs. 57,389.67. The Assistant Collector held that it had not been shown satisfactorily that the benzene had been lost or destroyed by natural causes or unavoidable accident during transport from the manufacturer of benzene to the factory of Hindustan Insecticides or during handling or storage in the premises of Hindustan Insecticides, he found no reason to treat the loss as inter....

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....ication and so the exemption should still hold good and the demand was liable to be quashed. 4. The learned counsel for the department rejected the appellant's arguments. He said the word "lost" was qualified by the words "by natural causes" and "by unavoidable accident" just as much as the word "destroyed" was. The loss, he reasoned, must be the effect of natural causes or of unavoidable accident. Any other interpretation would invite serious danger to public revenue because the loss by human agency would still qualify for exemption, an untenable proposition for reasons which are obvious. He refuted the appellant's arguments that intention was all that was necessary to earn exemption under Notification No. 34/73-C.E. by pointing out that ....