2002 (8) TMI 761

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.... imposed penalties of various amounts as detailed in the Order itself on the appellants. The appellant No. 1 is a company engaged in the manufacture of Ice-cream falling under Chapter 21.05 of the CETA. The officers of the Preventive Branch of the Central Excise, Bhopal conducted search of their factory, office and outlying premises after getting information that they were indulging in large scale evasion of the Central Excise duty by suppression of production and clandestine removal. During investigation record of the company was also resumed, statements were recorded in detail. Thereafter, show cause notice was issued vide which duty demand of Rs. 28,12,308/- was also raised and penalties were also proposed to be imposed on the company an....

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....d when this period was already included in the duty demand confirmed for the entire period from 1995-99. There was, apparently, overlapping of demand and this fact, according to the learned Counsel, has been completely ignored by the Commissioner. The Counsel has also relied upon the ratio of the law laid down in Krishna & Co. v. CCE [1998 (97) E.L.T. 74], Premier Glass Industries v. CCE [2000 (123) E.L.T. 703], Bearing Manufacturing Co. v. CCE, [2000 (123) E.L.T. 1148], CCE v. Raman Ispat (P) Ltd. [2000 (121) E.L.T. 46] and Gurpreet Rubber Industries v. CCE [1996 (82) E.L.T. 347] in support of his contention. 5. Learned JDR, on the other hand, has simply reiterated the correctness of the impugned Order. 6. We have heard Shr....

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....s referred to above and relied upon by the Counsel. The aspect of overlapping of duty period, as contended by the learned Counsel has also been not considered and gone into. The perusal of the impugned Order shows that learned Commissioner has raised certain presumption and assumptions which are not backed by any tangible evidence for holding the appellants guilty for clandestine production and removal of the goods. 9. The plea of the appellants that they were entitled to the benefit of SSI exemption as well as of the provisions of Section 4(4)(d) (ii) of the Act, has been also left out without proper discussion, by the Commissioner. 10. Similarly, penalties under Rule 209A of the Rules on the dealers-appellants had been imp....