2009 (10) TMI 441
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.... the Central Excise Act and appropriated towards such demand the sum of Rs. 1.5 lakhs paid earlier by the assessee during the course of investigations. The Asstt. Commissioner also imposed a penalty equal to duty on the assessee under Section 11AC of the Act read with Rule 25 of the Central Excise (No. 2) Rules, 2001/Central Excise Rules, 2002. A separate penalty of Rs. 1 lakh was imposed on Shri Ashok M. Jain, Director of the company, under Rule 26 of the said Rules. The company and its director appealed against the order of adjudication, but the appellate authority rejected both the appeals. Hence the present appeals filed by the assessee and the Director of the company. 2. The learned Counsel for the appellants submits that the amount....
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....s claimed support from the Hon'ble Supreme Court's judgment in Chamundi Die Cast (P) Ltd. v. Commissioner 2007 (215) E.L.T. 169 (S.C.). On the same grounds, counsel has also argued that the penalties imposed on the assessee and on their director are not sustainable. 3. The learned SDR has referred to the statements recorded under Section 14 of the Act from Shri Ashok Jain. It is submitted that Shri Ashok Jain admitted duty liability in his statements by accepting the excisability of the goods. It is submitted that Shri Ashok Jain admitted knowledge of the excisability of the goods. The statement was never retracted. In the circumstances, without any further evidence it was open to the authorities below to confirm the demand of duty again....
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....uary, 2003 it was being carried on by M/s. Ashpra Textiles Pvt. Ltd. with Shri Ashok Jain as one of the directors. Throughout, Shri Ashok Jain was exercising supervision and control of the manufacture and clearance of the goods. These are facts admitted by him in his statements given under Section 14 of the Central Excise Act. He also stated that the manufacturing activities i.e. dyeing of spun yarn/texturised polyester yarn had been initially started in the month of March, 2002 and, after a break, restarted in the month of June, 2002. He stated that he had also been undertaking such activities as job-work but did not maintain separate accounts for the job-work. He also admitted that certain invoices covering sale of goods viz : dyed textur....
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....t Notification. However, no notification was specifically referred to in the reply to the show-cause notice. Throughout this letter dated 26-12-2005, the assessee's endeavour was to resist the demand of duty on the ground of limitation. Case law was also cited. The original authority and the first appellate authority rejected the arguments and hence these appeals. 5. The demand of balance amount of duty has been contested on the ground of limitation. It has been argued that the proviso to Section 11A(1) is not attracted in this case. In this connection, learned Counsel has relied on the Supreme Court's judgment in the case of HMM Ltd. (supra). Their Lordships held as under : "..... Now in order to attract the proviso it must be shown ....
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....DR has referred to the dictionary meaning of the word 'clandestine'. Accordingly, this word means "secret or concealed, especially for illegal or unauthorised purpose". If that be so, the allegation in the show-cause notice is that the assessee secretly or in a concealed manner manufactured and cleared dutiable goods for an illegal purpose. What was that purpose? Had there been an allegation of intent to evade payment of duty, in the show-cause notice, the purpose would have been somewhat explicit. The show-cause notice contains mention of 'duty evaded'. However, it stopped short of alleging that the noticee acted with intent to evade payment of duty. Contravention of various provisions of law was alleged against them. But that was not enou....
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