TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2015 (10) TMI 2349
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....cture of processing as per Section 2 (f) of the Central Excise Act, 1944 and for imposing penalty on the appellant and co-appellants. 2. The facts of the case are that a case was booked against the main appellant for duty evasion allegedly clandestine removal of C.R. Strips. A show cause notice was issued on the ground that the appellant has manufactured C.R. Strips out of H.R. Coils and Strips and cleared the same without payment of duty. The matter was adjudicated and demand as proposed in the show cause notice was confirmed along with interest and penalties were also imposed on the appellants. The said order was challenged by the appellants before this Tribunal and this Tribunal vide Final Order No.A-125-128/2001-NB dated 23.01.2001 h....
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....om the said order, the appellants are before us. 4. Ld. Counsel for the appellants drew our attention to the order of the Hon'ble Apex Court wherein the matter has been remanded to the adjudicating authority and the adjudicating authority has not complied with the directions of the Hon'ble Apex Court and confirmed the demand. He further submits that on merits also, the adjudicating authority has not considered the contentions made by the appellants and passed the order. Therefore, the same is required to be set aside. 5. On the other hand, ld. Authorised Representative supported the impugned order. 6. Heard the parties. Considered the submissions. 7. In remand proceedings, ld, Commissioner has observed as under:- ....
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.... considering the above position in this case, the burden was on the noticees to make out a case that their activity of cold rolling did not amount to manufacture. Only in such a situation the burden would have shifted to the department to adduce evidences to hold that cold rolling amounts to manufacture. As already discussed above, no such need arose since the noticees willingly and voluntarily approached the department for registration for manufacture of C.R. Strips and paid excise duty without any protest on C.R. Strips cleared from their factory. Even at present, they continue to pay excise duty on C.R. Strips without any protest. 13.1 The noticees have pleaded that the processes undertaken by them merely reduced thickness of H.....
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....ps, have clearly observed that it is for the respondent (i.e. M/s. Steel Strips) to produce necessary evidences that the process did not amount to manufacture. 13.3 There are plethora of decisions as to what would amount to manufacture in terms of Section 2(f) of the said Act. The crux of these decisions is that as a result of various processes to which an input is subjected to a new and distinct product having a new name, character and use should emerge so as to be leviable to duty of central excise. 13.4 I proceed to examine whether various processes to which H.R. coils/strips were subjected to resulted in a new and distinct product in terms of Section 2 (f) of the said Act. Firstly, if it was a simple case of mere reduc....
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....e also note that on the basis of the records available, the ld. Commissioner has not given independent finding thereon, who is at liberty to examine the relevant records and thereafter to arrive at a decision whether the activities undertaken by the appellant amounts to manufacture or not. 10. We also observed that in para 18.6, the ld. Commissioner has made an observation that the appellant has not provided co-relation of the entries in diaryA-38. Therefore, the co-relation statement cannot be relied upon. On the contrary, the contention of the ld. Counsel is that he has supplied the co-relation statement and corresponding invoices to the adjudicating authority but the same has not been considered, this fact is to be examined by the adj....