2003 (5) TMI 383

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....l, 1992 to January, 1993 with equal amount of penalty. 2. The appellants are engaged in the manufacture of PPMF yarn falling under Chapter 54 of the CETA. On 6-1-93, their factory premises was visited by the officers of the Central Excise and carried out checking of the record relating to raw material, production and clearance. On scrutiny of the record, it revealed that they had shown unusual generation of waste during the manufacture of the said yarn since 8-12-92 onwards, although the raw material consumed and the finished yarn production matched the average of the preceding period. In order to ascertain the true position, the officers again visited the factory of the appellants on 23-1-93 and resumed one log book maintained by t....

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....clandestine manner by the appellants under the garb of waste which was shown higher than what was recorded in the RG-1. The sole evidence relied upon by the authorities below for confirming this demand is the log book entries allegedly maintained by the shift engineers. But in our view, the entries in the log book did not provide any conclusive and tangible evidence regarding the clandestine manufacture and removal of the yarn. These entries at the most reflected excess wastage generated during the manufacture of the yarn. Moreover, the shift engineer/engineers who made the entries in the log book were never examined during the course of investigation to know/ascertain the basis on which the same were recorded. None of the employees/officer....

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....to 1kg. Shear pin bkg" From these observations, it is quite evident that there was only heavy waste and not any excess manufacture of the yarn. The shift engineers of the appellants were themselves worried about the heavy waste and stressed the need for reducing the same as is evident from the above observations. Therefore, it is difficult to accept that in fact there was no waste or less waste than the one shown in the log book and that the appellants in reality manufactured and removed yarn in a clandestine manner to avoid payment of duty, especially when there is not an iota of evidence on the record to show that there was any excess consumption of electricity, raw material and production of the yarn by the appellants during the perio....