2000 (3) TMI 377

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....irmed demand of duty of Rs. 10,64,364.19 and has imposed personal penalty of Rs. 10,000/- 2. The said demand has been confirmed against the appellants for the period 30-10-1987 to August 1989 on the ground that during this period the appellants were not entitled to the benefit of Notification No. 175/86-CE. The said notification was amended vide Notification No. 224/87, dated 30-10-1987 and the benefit for exemption was made available only to those factories which were not registered with the DGTD, New Delhi. This condition continued up to 31-8-1989 till the said notification was further amended by another Notification No. 174/89, dated 1-9-1989. As the appellants' unit was registered with DGTD, the exemption under the said notifica....

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....ties on the point of limitation. 4. Countering the arguments Shri R.K. Roy, ld. JDR draws our attention to the findings of the Id. adjudicating authority. He submits that admittedly the benefit of the notification was not available to the appellants during the period in question on account of their being registered with DGTD. The fact of registration of the appellants factory with DGTD was never brought to the notice of the department. Even at the time of filing of classification lists the appellants never disclosed that they are not registered with Directorate of Industries as a small scale unit and were registered with DGTD. He submits that such a declaration was specifically required to be made by the appellants while claiming ex....

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....Regarding the production of SSI certificate it may kindly be recalled that this matter has been sorted out in course of our discussion on the aforesaid date in the light of clause 4(b)(ii) vide Notification No. 175/86 of Central Excise. A reading of the above paragraph clearly shows that the appellants again avoided a direct answer to their unit being SSI registered issue. 6. We understand that at that point of time the registration as small scale industrial unit was not the criteria for the appellants for availing the benefit inasmuch as the benefit was being availed in terms of para 4(b). However, the said letters cannot be said to have imparted any knowledge to the department as regards the appellants' status of being a DGTD u....