2022 (10) TMI 264

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....d with Section 35F of the Central Excise Act, 1944, made a pre-deposit in cash through Form GST DRC-03. The appeals were accepted and registered and appeal numbers were allotted. Thereafter, petitioner was called for personal hearing and petitioner made submissions on merits of the matter. 3. To petitioner's surprise, all the appeals came to be dismissed without going into the merits of the submissions made by petitioner only on the ground that the pre-deposit made by petitioner while filing the appeal was improper. According to respondent no.3, petitioners could not have made the deposit in the manner they made and, therefore, should be construed to have not complied with the precondition of pre-deposit. Strangely in the order respondent ....

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....d order respondent no.3 has admitted that payment has been made. Paragraph 7 of the impugned order reads as under : 7. Further, from the two appeal memos, I also find that the appellant has deposited the pre-deposit an amount of Rs.13,25,181/- vide ARN No.AD2709210128016 dated 18/09/21 and Rs.5,01,859/- vide ARN No.AD270921 0124504 dated 17/09/21, which was mandatory under Section 35F(i) of the Central Excise Act, 1944 read with Section 83 of the Finance Act, 1994. I find that the Appellant has paid the amount of pre-deposit amounting to Rs.13,25,181/- through DRC-03 vide ARN No.AD270921012 8016 dated 18/09/21 and Rs.5,01,859/- through DRC-03 vide ARN No.AD2709210124504 dated 17/09/21 in two Appeal memos. 6. We find that this is a matter....

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....d Central Excise by a letter dated 10th February 2022. Ms. Masurkar states that the impugned order passed by Mr. Lal, therefore, should not be viewed as something which has been done without applying his mind. We accept Ms. Masurkar's explanation having considered the letter dated 10th February 2022 that is placed on record. 8. Therefore, it does appear that the confusion seems to be due to there being no proper legal provision to accept payment of pre-deposit under Section 35F of the Central Excise Act, 1944 through DRC-03. Some appellants are filing appeals after making pre-deposit payments through DRC-30/GSTR-3B. In our view, this has very wide ramifications and certainly requires the CBI & C to step in and issue suitable clarifications....