TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1999 (12) TMI 268
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....tral Excise Rules, 1944 during the relevant period. On 3-2-1994, Central Excise Officers, on receipt of intelligence, visited the appellants' factory and inspected statutory as well as private records. They also verified the input gate passes and cross-checked the same with the respective bills/invoices. The scrutiny of records revealed that the appellants had taken Modvat credit of the duty paid on their inputs viz. paints and welding electrodes in RG 23A Part-II during the period April, 1989 to April, 1993 on the strength of gate passes and certificates without accounting for the inputs in RG 23A Part I. The credit of duty so taken amounted to Rs. 1,97,616.45 and the same was utilised for payment of duty on the finished products. The Cent....
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.... of Central Excise who confirmed the entire demand of duty of Rs. 1,97,616.45 and also imposed a penalty of Rs. 20,000/- on the party. In the appeal filed by the party against this order of adjudication, the Commissioner of Central Excise (Appeals) upheld the order of the Deputy Commissioner in toto. Hence, the present appeal by the aggrieved party. 2. I have carefully examined the orders of both the lower authorities and connected records of the case. I have also heard the learned Advocate, Shri O.J. Chacko for the appellants and the learned JDR, Shri D.K. Nayyar for the respondent/Revenue. 3. I observe that the adjudicating authority disallowed the credits taken by the party on paints and welding electrodes on the ground t....
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....observed that the appellants had, in their appeal to the Commissioner (Appeals), contested the invocation of the extended period of limitation under the proviso to Section 11A(1) of the Central Excises & Salt Act by submitting that such extended period of limitation could not be made applicable to their case inasmuch as the information of the Modvat credits taken by them was available to the Department by way of RT-12 returns which used to be filed by them regularly. This contention of the appellants, however, has not been sustained by the lower appellate authority who has recorded a finding that the appellants suppressed the fact that inputs were purchased from time to time in piecemeal from traders and the relevant duty-paying documents i....
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....issued by the manufacturer of the inputs, through the said manufacturer's distributor, in piecemeal and such gate passes were duly endorsed in the assessee's favour. The endorsed gate passes were correlateable to the inputs received under cover of invoices and certificates of the distributor. The Tribunal, in that case, held that Modvat credit was available on the inputs on the strength of the duty-paying documents under Rule 57G of the Central Excise Rules. The learned Advocate has successfully drawn an analogy between the facts of the instant case with those of the case of C.C.E. v. Multilayer Composites Limited (supra). The learned Advocate has further submitted that the lower appellate authority's order is a non-speaking one inasmuch as....
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....h force in this submission of the learned Advocate, having regard to the totality of the facts and circumstances of the case. It is not in dispute that the appellants had been regularly submitting their RT-12 Returns and allied Modvat documents to the proper officer of Central Excise. In view of this fact, the burden is heavy on the Department to prove the allegation of suppression of facts and that of fraudulent entries in statutory record, which in my considered view, the Department could not accomplish in the present case. In the circumstances, I must hold that the invocation of the extended period of limitation under the proviso to Section 11A(1) of the Act for recovering Central Excise duty from the appellants is not sustainable in the....