2017 (12) TMI 327
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....aining to this dispute, it may be worthwhile to recall the scheme of exemption that that is at the root. 2. In order that public conveyance such as taxis are not burdened by duties intended for vehicles for private use, an effective rate of duty with exemption through refund mechanism has been adopted by the Central Government. Notification no. 6/2006-CE dated 1st March 2006 exempts duty in excess of 10% subject to compliance with the condition prescribed therein. 3. Acknowledging that the manufacturer would not, at the time of clearance, be able to distinguish between cars that would, eventually, be used for personal purpose or as public conveyance, the effective duty of 10%, against the standard duty of 22%, is made operative through a ....
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....ansport Services Pvt Ltd, till 23rd July 2010 and was sent for registration only on 24th July 2010. Both the deadlines stipulated in the notification had not been complied with leading to issue of notice dated 18th February 2011 for denial of refund claim which was confirmed by original authority and upheld by first appellate authority in order-in-appeal no. P-I/RKS/120/2011 dated 24th August 2011 of Commissioner of Central Excise (Appeals), Pune I that is here impugned. 6. That the vehicle was cleared on payment of standard rate of duty is not in dispute. Nor is there is any dispute that the dealer sold the vehicle for use as a taxi to M/s Maan Tourist Transport Services Pvt Ltd. It is the non-compliance with the deadlines for registratio....
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....fore the Tribunal in re Amee Castor and Derivatives Ltd as well as in re Kalyani Hayes Lemmerz Ltd. Nevertheless, the refund that was rejected in both these cases was that of input tax credit relating to goods that were exported and the procedural prescription limited the entitlement to a period far less than that in section 11B of Central Excise Act, 1944. It, however, needs noting that section 11B which bases the limitation period to count with effect from relevant date does not enumerate date of export as one among the many for computation and hence the conclusion of the Tribunal that the notification is a self-contained code into which another unrelated statutory provision could not be insinuated. 9. In the present dispute, the relevan....
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....vate use would, in the language of contemporary discourse, be termed as demerit goods justifying the extra burden both for garnering revenue and as a disincentive; obviously, legislature did not intend to saddle a public conveyance with that disincentive. The procedures prescribed in the notification were, obviously, intended to safeguard against its misuse and to ensure that there is no deviation from the general law. The particular mode of transfer of vehicles to a dealer before the alternative of private use versus public deployment could be made at the consumption end necessitated this convoluted transactional arrangement. That the impugned transaction was the object of the exemption notification cannot be questioned. 11. Hence, unless....
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....und amount should also have kept pace does appear to be a reasonable construction. That it was by oversight or disinclination to subject the purpose of the limitation in the procedure for refund in the impugned notification may not be far from the truth. This is apparent from the disposal of the dispute in Hindustan Motors Ltd v. Collector of Central Excise, [1984 (16) ELT 647 (Tri-Kolkata)] by the Tribunal emphasising compliance with conditions of the notification no. 141/75 dated 23rd May 1975 in view of the time bar and authority prescribed in section 11B of Central Excise Act, 1944. 12. The motor vehicle having been consumed for the purpose for which the exemption was intended and there being no reasonable cause to presume that legisla....


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