2015 (10) TMI 1912

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....r , learned counsel for the appellant and Mr.M.Devendran , learned Standing Counsel for the respondent. 3. The appellant filed a refund claim for a sum of Rs. 8 ,64,044.30 Ps, being the amount paid against 4% additional duty of customs levied under Section 3(5) of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975, for the import of reprocessed LLDPE granules vide 11 Bills of Entry. The refund was claimed in terms of Notification No.102/2007-Cus dated 14.9.2007 as amended by Notification No.93/2008 dated 1.8.2008 read with Board's circular Nos.6/2008-Customs dated 28.4.2008 and 16/2008-Customs dated 13.10.2008. The application for refund was made on 4.5.2012. 4. Though Circular No.16/2008 dated 13.10.2008 obliges the jurisdictional commissioners to pro....

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....the said order, the appellant filed a writ petition in W.P.No.22321 of 2014. The said writ petition was dismissed by the learned Judge by an order dated 31.10.2014 on the ground that they have an alternative remedy of appeal. Therefore, the assessee has come up with the above appeal. 8. It is true that the appellant has an effective alternative remedy of appeal. But, this is not a case where the appellant would stand to benefit by bypassing the alternative remedy. The case relates to a refund claim. The manner in which, the refund claim was processed and ultimately rejected, leaves much to be desired and this is not a fit case where the appellant should have been thrown to avail the alternative remedy. We have already extracted the only ....

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....ocessing the refund claims. The Regulations stipulate that whenever applications are found to be incomplete or defective, the same should be notified within 10 working days. Adequate time should be given to the assessee to set right the defects. All these have been overlooked by the respondent in the Order in Original. 12. By sending a notice on 18.2.2014 from Chennai to an assessee in New Delhi asking them to appear for a personal hearing on the 24th, 25th and 26th February 2014, the respondent cannot claim to have fulfilled the requirements of the Notification, the Regulations and the Circular. There is no dispute about the fact that the appellant received the deficiency memo only on 24.2.2014. In such circumstances, the respondent can....