TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1988 (4) TMI 54
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.... purchase steel sheets and plates from the factories which are now owned by the Steel Authority of India Limited which, as is well known, now owns the steel projects in the public sector. On the products manufactured by them the petitioners have to pay excise duty. However, under a Notification No. 95/79-C.E., dated 1st of March, 1979, credit is available to the petitioners to the extent of the excise duty which has been paid on steel sheets and plates consumed by the petitioners in the manufacture of their own products. 2. Rule 56A of the Central Excise Rules, hereinafter referred to as "the Rules", prescribes the procedure in accordance with which credit for the excise duty which is already paid under the notification referred to above....
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....and the Excise Department, the latter insisting upon the production of the documents mentioned in Rule 56A(3) (i)(b). The petitioners have now approached this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying for an order requiring the respondents to give them credit without insisting upon the documents mentioned by the respondents in their correspondence with the petitioners. 4. Mr. Andhyarujina, the learned Advocate appearing in support of the petition, has taken me through the petition and after pointing out the correspondence exchanged between the parties has sought to argue that it was an error on the part of the respondents to insist upon the production by the petitioners of the documents mentioned in the Rule referred t....
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....Appellate Tribunal, Western Regional Bench at Bombay, hereinafter referred to as "the CEGAT", has taken the view that Rule 56A should be held to be substantially complied with and insistence should not be made on the technical compliance thereof. In Collector of Central Excise, Bombay v. Goodlass Nerolac Paints Limited, 1986 (26) E.L.T. 57, the West Regional Bench of the CEGAT at Bombay held that in order to claim proforma credit, it is not essential that the manufacturer who availed proforma credit should be shown as the consignee in G.P.I. or there should be an endorsement on the reverse of G.P.I. or there should be a subsidiary gate pass in his name. I do not see similarity between the facts in Goodlass Nerolac Paints Limited's case and ....
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....possibility of stocks having been consumed, it has been decided that all stocks of semi-finished steel existing in the market on or after the 1st of August, 1963 should be deemed to have paid duty and no proof of payment of duty on them need be demanded. Set-off or exemption of duty on them need be allowed assuming that the semi-finished steel including blooms billets and slabs etc. purchased from the market on or after 1.8.1963 have paid the appropriate amount of duty." 8. In the affidavit-in-reply filed on behalf of the respondents, there is no reference at all to the petitioners' averments relating to the instructions issued by the Government of India on 26th of July, 1963, except saying that "the stand of the petitioners with regard ....