2019 (6) TMI 498

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....ld.Advocate. 3. At the outset, the ld.Advocate on behalf of the respondent, raised a preliminary objection to the appeal filed by the Revenue. He submitted that the appeal has been filed without satisfying the condition outlined under Section 35B of the Central Excise Act, 1944. This Section stipulates that any appeal filed by the Revenue against the order passed by the Commissioner (Appeals) is to be accompanied by the order of the Committee of Commissioners, who has examined the said order of the Commissioner (Appeals). The said order of the Committee holding that the impugned order is not legal and proper, has not been furnished by the Revenue as part of the appeal. Accordingly, he submitted that the appeal is not maintainable. 4. ....

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....e. The dispute covers the period from 01.04.2002 to 05.09.2004. In the Finance Act, 2002, the Government announced a reduction in the rates of Central Excise duty applicable to the petroleum products, namely, Motor Spirits (MS) and High Speed Diesel (HSD). Such reduction was w.e.f. 01.03.2002. In this connection, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, issued a letter dated 28.02.2002 to all the Oil Marketing Companies. In the said letter, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has directed all the oil marketing companies to rework their assessable values in such a way so that retail prices of MS & HSD would be reduced by Rs. 1.00 per Ltr. as well as Rs. 0.50 per Ltr. respectively w.e.f. mid night of 28th February/1st March, 2002. As ....

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....ion in assessable value to the extent of "Price Reduction Factor" is in the nature of "trade discount". He submitted that had the respondent passed on the entire reduction in the Excise duty to the customers, the price of MS and HSD would have come down automatically equal to or less than the price intended by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. (ii) He also submitted that the reduction in the assessable value, was not passed on to the buyer under any specific scheme of discount announced by the respondent. As such, the reduction in the assessable value to the extent of "Price Reduction Factor" is to be disallowed. 9. The ld.Advocate on behalf of the respondent submitted that the order of the Commissioner (Appeals) merits....

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..... However, the Commissioner (Appeals), in the impugned order has discussed the issue at length on merit and has concluded that there is no justification for demand of differential duty. He has considered such reduction in assessable value to be in the form of a "trade discount", which is admissible in terms of Section 4 of the Central Excise Act, 1944. After carefully considering the findings of the ld.Commissioner (Appeals), we find no reason to interfere with the same and we uphold the same. 13. In addition to the findings of the ld.Commissioner (Appeals), we also find that Revenue has issued show-cause notice on 23.01.2007 for the demand covering the period from 01.03.2002 to 05.09.2004. For making such demand, they have resorted to t....