2015 (4) TMI 565

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.... the Commissioner (Opposite Party No.2) confirmed the penalty of amount of Rs. 3,77,43,227/- for recovery of the amount from the petitioner under Section 11AC of the Central Excise Act, 1944 (herein after referred to as the Act, 1944) apart from penalty of Rs. 50,00,000/- against Sri Neeraj Goel, Managing Director as well as further Rs. 10,00,000/- against Sri Piyush Gupta, the authorized signatory and power of attorney holder of the petitioner-company under Rule 26 of the Central Excise Rules, 2002. 2. Learned counsel for the petitioners essentially presses the plea that there has been violation of natural justice as well as the Central Excise Act, 1944 and no adequate opportunity was afforded to the petitioner to represent his case, pr....

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....been received by the petitioner on 14.7.2010, i.e. after 12.7.2010 on which date, the purported date of hearing had been fixed. The impugned order further goes on to submit that the authority investigated into the matter as to the date of receipt of the letter and came to a finding that the petitioner had deliberately delayed receipt of personal-hearing-intimation by speed post with an object to delay the process of adjudication and in view of the fact that they had exhausted the three adjournments permissible under Section 33A of the Act, 1944 and the deliberate attempt for delaying the process of adjudication, the application dated 16.7.2010 for adjournment was rejected and the matter was disposed of holding the date of hearing as 12.7.20....

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....ent sought for by the petitioner in course of the proceeding and the next date was fixed on 12.7.2010. Admittedly, though it is claimed that the oral intimation had been issued to the petitioner in course of hearing of some other case, admittedly, the official notice communicating the date of hearing to 12.7.2010 was sent under cover of letter dated 2.7.2010 and such letter was served on the petitioner after the date of hearing only on 14.7.2010 i.e. two days after the date of hearing. Therefore, since the statutory notice of hearing itself was served on the petitioner only after the date of hearing, no effective hearing could have taken place on the said date. 6. In the light of the aforesaid discussion, it is clear that Section 33A of ....