TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2024 (6) TMI 350
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....rovided in this section, the period of limitation of one year shall be computed in the following manner, namely : --- (b) where the duty becomes refundable as a consequence of any judgment, decree, order or direction of the appellate authority, Appellate Tribunal or any court, the limitation of one year shall be computed from the date of such judgment, decree, order or direction," 9. From the statutory provisions it is established that the period of one year shall commence from the date of the Final Order on the issue which was 24.08.2018. On this issue, even through the appellants tried to rely on some decisions of the Tribunal, I find that the Hon'ble Supreme Court has already settled the issue way back in 1997 which was also followed in subsequent decisions by the Supreme Court in the case of Porcelain Electrical Mfg. Co. reported in 1998 (98-ELT-583), in the case of UOI vs. Kirloskar Pneumatic Co. reported in 1996 (84-ELT-401), in the case of Miles India Ltd., Anam Electrical Manufacturing Co. etc. by the Supreme Court in which it was categorically held again and again that refund claims filed before the Departmental Authorities are to be governed by the time limit prov....
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....th consequential relief by the Tribunal. ➢ As this is a consequential refund as per the said order Revenue was bound to pay the same and could not have been rejected on the ground of limitation as these amounts were deposited under protest. ➢ The period of limitation should not be applied for rejecting this refund claim. Reliance is placed on the following decisions:- India Swift Lands Ltd. [(2017) 78 taxmann.com 209]. Poddar Pigments Ltd. [2006 (206) E.L.T. 563 (Tri.- Del.)]. Piramal Spg. & Wvg. Mills [2004 (175) E.L.T. 256]. Sunil Synchem Ltd. [2003 (157) E.L.T. 58 (Tri.- Del.)]. Shree Ram Food Industries [2003 (152) E.L.T. 285 (Guj.)]. ➢ the impugned order needs to be set aside and the refunds to be allowed in favour of appellants 3.3 Learned Authorized Representative reiterates the findings recorded in the impugned order. 4.1 I have considered the impugned order along with submissions made in the appeal and during the course of arguments. 4.2 During the course of arguments Appellants submitted the chronology of events leading to the refund claims in dispute. The same is reproduced below : - Sr. NO. DATES EVENTS 1 20.01.2015 Bill....
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....d by the appellants on the direction of the department was being contested by them from the adjudicating stage till they won the appeal before the Tribunal. Therefore, such payment will be considered as payment under protest. Tribunal under its Final Order had given direction to give consequential relief to the appellants which should have been given by the department. But instead of giving them refund, they rejected it on time-bar which is not correct. In view of the above, I find that payment made by the appellants has to be considered as payment under protest and the refund should be allowed to them if otherwise in order. The appeal is, therefore, allowed." 4.4 Similar view was expressed by the tribunal in case of Hawkins Cookers Ltd. [2017 (346) E.L.T. 298 (Tri. - Mumbai)] observing as follows: "5. I find that the original dispute raised by the department is that the admissibility of Cenvat credit in respect of packing material. Due to the dispute, appellant reversed the Cenvat credit. On the said dispute appellant succeeded partly before the Tribunal. Accordingly, amount reversed was claimed as a refund. I find that this is not a case of refund of excise duty paid on final ....
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....cided the matter in favour of the appellant, refund with interest should be paid to the appellant within 15 days of the receipt of the letter of the appellant seeking refund, irrespective of whether order of the appellate authority is proposed to be challenged by the Department or not." 4.8 In case of Abdulla Gani [2013 (298) E.L.T. 221 (Bom)], Hon'ble Bombay High Court has held as follows : "9. Strictly speaking, Section 27A applies to a claim of refund of duty or interest and does not specifically refer to the payment of interest on a refund of penalty or on pre- deposit effected before the Appellate Tribunal or, for that matter, before the appellate authority. In Commissioner of Central Excise, Hyderabad v. I.T.C. Limited - 2005 (179) E.L.T. 15 (S.C.), the issue before a Bench of three learned Judges of the Supreme Court in a batch of appeals was whether a pre-deposit made as a pre-condition for the hearing of an appeal under the Central Excise Act, 1944 was, on the assessee being ultimately successful, refundable to the assessee with interest. The Tribunal had in diverse orders issued directions for the payment of interest on refunds of pre-deposit. Before the Supreme Court,....
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....date of payment of duty or interest in relation to a person, other than the importer, shall be construed as "the date of purchase of goods" by such person. (1A) The application under sub-section (1) shall be accompanied by such documentary or other evidence (including the documents referred to in section 28C) as the applicant may furnish to establish that the amount of duty or interest, in relation to which such refund is claimed was collected from, or paid by, him and the incidence of such duty or interest, has not been passed on by him to any other person. (1B) Save as otherwise provided in this section, the period of limitation of one year shall be computed in the following manner, namely:- (a) in the case of goods which are exempt from payment of duty by a special order issued under sub-section (2) of section 25, the limitation of one year shall be computed from the date of issue of such order; (b) where the duty becomes refundable as a consequence of any judgment, decree, order or direction of the appellate authority, Appellate Tribunal or any court, the limitation of one year shall be computed from the date of such judgment, decree, order or direction; (c) where any....
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....ternal aids and external aids which are tools for interpreting the statutes. 17. The long title, the preamble, the heading, the marginal note, punctuation, illustrations, definitions or dictionary clause, a proviso to a section, explanation, examples, a schedule to the Act etc., are internal aids to construction. The external aids to construction are Parliamentary debates, history leading to the legislation, other statutes which have a bearing, dictionaries, thesaurus. 18. It is well accepted that a statute must be construed according to the intention of the Legislature and the Courts should act upon the true intention of the legislation while applying law and while interpreting law. If a statutory provision is open to more than one meaning, the Court has to choose the interpretation which represents the intention of the Legislature. In this connection, the following observations made by this Court in District Mining Officer v. Tata Iron and Steel Co., (2001) 7 SCC 358, may be noticed: "... A statute is an edict of the Legislature and in construing a statute, it is necessary, to seek the intention of its maker. A statute has to be construed according to the intent of them th....
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....the intention of the Legislature. In Kanai Lal Sur v. Paramnidhi Sadhukhan, AIR 1957 SC 907, it was held that if the words used are capable of one construction only then it would not be open to the Courts to adopt any other hypothetical construction on the ground that such construction is more consistent with the alleged object and policy of the Act. 20. In applying rule of plain meaning any hardship and inconvenience cannot be the basis to alter the meaning to the language employed by the legislation. This is especially so in fiscal statutes and penal statutes. Nevertheless, if the plain language results in absurdity, the Court is entitled to determine the meaning of the word in the context in which it is used keeping in view the legislative purpose [Assistant Commissioner, Gadag Sub-Division, Gadag v. Mathapathi Basavannewwa, 1995 (6) SCC 355]. Not only that, if the plain construction leads to anomaly and absurdity, the Court having regard to the hardship and consequences that flow from such a provision can even explain the true intention of the legislation. Having observed general principles applicable to statutory interpretation, it is now time to consider rules of interpreta....
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....anings. 2. An interpretation according to what the interpreter narrowly believes to have been the specific intentions or understandings of the text‟s authors or ratifiers, and no more. - Also termed (in senses 1 & 2) strict construction, literal interpretation; literal construction; restricted interpretation; interpretatio stricta; interpretatio restricta; interpretatio verbalis. 3. The philosophy underlying strict interpretation of statutes. - Also termed as close interpretation; interpretatio restrictive. See strict constructionism under constructionism. Cf. large interpretation; liberal interpretation (2). "Strict construction of a statute is that which refuses to expand the law by implications or equitable considerations, but confines its operation to cases which are clearly within the letter of the statute, as well as within its spirit or reason, not so as to defeat the manifest purpose of the legislature, but so as to resolve all reasonable doubts against the applicability of the statute to the particular case.‟ Wiliam M. Lile et al., Brief Making and the use of Law Books 343 (Roger W. Cooley & Charles Lesly Ames eds., 3d ed. 1914). "Strict interpretation is....
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....een „strict interpretation‟ and „literal interpretation‟. We may reiterate at the cost of repetition that strict interpretation of a statute certainly involves literal or plain meaning test. The other tools of interpretation, namely contextual or purposive interpretation cannot be applied nor any resort be made to look to other supporting material, especially in taxation statutes. Indeed, it is well- settled that in a taxation statute, there is no room for any intendment; that regard must be had to the clear meaning of the words and that the matter should be governed wholly by the language of the notification. Equity has no place in interpretation of a tax statute. Strictly one has to look to the language used; there is no room for searching intendment nor drawing any presumption. Furthermore, nothing has to be read into nor should anything be implied other than essential inferences while considering a taxation statute. 26. Justice G.P. Singh, in his treatise „Principles of Statutory Interpretation‟ (14th ed. 2016 p.-879) after referring to Re, Micklethwait, (1885) 11 Ex 452; Partington v. A.G., (1869) LR 4 HL 100; Rajasthan Rajya Sahakari Spin....
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....o one side or the other but keeping in mind that no tax can be imposed without words clearly showing an intention to lay the burden and that equitable construction of the words is not permissible [Ormond Investment Co. v. Betts, (1928) AC 143]. Considerations of hardship, injustice or anomalies do not play any useful role in construing taxing statutes unless there be some real ambiguity [Mapp v. Oram, (1969) 3 All ER 215]. It has also been said that if taxing provision is "so wanting in clarity that no meaning is reasonably clear, the Courts will be unable to regard it as of any effect [IRC v. Ross and Coutler, (1948) 1 All ER 616]." Further elaborating on this aspect, the Learned author stated as follows : "Therefore, if the words used are ambiguous and reasonable open to two interpretations benefit of interpretation is given to the subject [Express Mill v. Municipal Committee, Wardha, AIR 1958 SC 341]. If the Legislature fails to express itself clearly and the taxpayer escapes by not being brought within the letter of the law, no question of unjustness as such arises [CIT v. Jalgaon Electric Supply Co., AIR 1960 SC 1182]. But equitable considerations are not relevant in const....
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.... Supreme Court has in the case of Mafatlal Industries [1997 (89) E.L.T. 247 (SC)] held as follows:- "99. The discussion in the judgment yields the following propositions. We may forewarn that these propositions are set out merely for the sake of convenient reference and are not supposed to be exhaustive. In case of any doubt or ambiguity in these propositions, reference must be had to the discussion and propositions in the body of the judgment. (i) Where a refund of tax/duty is claimed on the ground that it has been collected from the petitioner/plaintiff - whether before the commencement of the Central Excises and Customs Laws (Amendment) Act, 1991 or thereafter - by mis-interpreting or mis-applying the provisions of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 read with Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985 or Customs Act, 1962 read with Customs Tariff Act or by mis-interpreting or mis-applying any of the rules, regulations or notifications issued under the said enactments, such a claim has necessarily to be preferred under and in accordance with the provisions of the respective enactment before the authorities specified thereunder and within the period of limitation prescribed therein. ....