TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2014 (1) TMI 1467
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....he business of manufacturing of medicines and are operating as 100% Export Oriented Undertaking. For goods manufactured by the petitioners as 100% EOU and brought to any other place in India, the rate of excise is prescribed under clause (ii) of the proviso to Section 3(1) of the Central Excise Act, 1944. 4. It is the case of the petitioners that the petitioners have been paying as excise duty, the sum total of duties of Customs and Education Cess as well as Secondary and Higher Education Cess on the basic Customs duty leviable on similar medicines imported into India. However, the dispute of the Department is regarding calculation of the excise duty leviable on the clearances made by the petitioners as EOU to the domestic tariff ar....
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....e goods has been worked out, the question of levying education cess separately in respect of clearances by 100% EOU to DTA does not arise. Inasmuch as the issue is covered by the decision of the Tribunal cited above, we allow the appeal with consequential relief to the appellant." 5. Such decision of the Tribunal along with similar other decisions were challenged by the Department before this Court. Several appeals were clubbed together. Division Bench of this Court by an order dated 19-1-2012 passed in Tax Appeal No. 2012 of 2012 and connected appeals held such appeals were not maintainable before the High Court and would lie before the Supreme Court only. 6. Counsel for the Department informs us that because of the small c....
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....ision of the Tribunal holds the field. Such decision of the Tribunal would be binding on the adjudicating authority. Even if the Department is of the opinion that the issue is not free from doubt, it is not open for the adjudicating authority to ignore the binding precedent. We may notice that under the Central Excise Act, 1944 and the Customs Act, the Department has the right to appeal even against the order-in-original passed by the adjudicating authority. This is in contrast to the provisions contained in the Income-tax Act, 1961 where against an order passed by the assessing officer, the Department has no right to appeal. Only remedy available to the Revenue is by way of a revision against the order of the assessing officer that too onl....
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....ciples of judicial discipline require that the orders of the higher appellate authorities should be followed unreservedly by the subordinate authorities. The more fact that the order of the appellate authority is not "acceptable" to the department - in itself an objectionable phrase - and is the subject-matter of an appeal can furnish no ground for not following it unless its operation has been suspended by a competent Court. If this healthy rule is not followed, the result will only be undue harassment to assessees and chaos in administration of tax laws. 7. The impression or anxiety of the Assistant Collector that, if he accepted the assessee's contention, the department would lose revenue and would also have no remedy to have the....