TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (12) TMI 778
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....d For the Respondent : Shri Girish Nair, Assistant Commissioner (AR) appeared ORDER SOMESH ARORA: 1. The present appellants in the bunch of appeals are purchasers during the course of official liquidation of various assets of M/s. Varun Seacon Ltd., a 100% EOU, which was earlier engaged in the manufacture of Refrigerated and Plain Marine Freight Containers. They were procuring duty free goods from various sources. They stopped their functioning in the year 1998 and Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) vide their order dated 15.03.2000 declared the company as a sick industrial unit. Consequently, Hon'ble High Court of Gujarat vide order dated 07.03.2002, appointed an official liquidator in order to sell the ass....
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....haser of the assets as per various case laws in this regard. Only if unit is sold as such as a running concern and not when assets are sold, can question of recovery of duty arise. They have placed reliance in this regard on various case laws as follows:- * Collector of Customs Vs. Dytron (India) Ltd. as reported in 1999 (108) ELT 342 (Cal.) * M/s. Dollar Industries (Spinning Division) Vs. Assistant Commissioner as reported in 2021 (375) ELT 455 (Mad.) * Sanjeev Mahajan, Janak Raj Gupta & Co. Ltd. as reported in 2019 (6) TMI 260- CESTAT Ahmedabad 2.1 Also on the proposition, that an auction purchaser is not importer and during the purchase of the properties of a wound up company, he cannot be considered as impo....
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....ing up of M/s. Varun Seacon Ltd. which was operating as 100% EOU. The appointment of official liquidator was in the following terms:- "6. Accordingly, M/s Varun Seacon Ltd., the respondent-Company, is ordered to be wound up. The Official Liquidator attached to this Court is appointed as the Official Liquidator who shall take over the possession of the assets and books of accounts of the respondent-Company and make an inventory thereof within one month from today. The Official Liquidator shall exercise all the powers and discharge the duties under the Companies Act, 1956 and also comply with the procedural requirements prescribed by or under the Companies Act, 1956." 4.1 We also find that vide order dated 27.04.2005, the Hon'ble ....
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....mpanies Act,1956. The department has not shown to this Court any non-obstante clause through which it can be considered that the Customs duties or other dues still survive when the sale of assets takes place as per Companies Act, 1956. No non-obstante clause under the relevant fiscal legislations have been brought to our notice which can prevail upon the provisions of the Companies Act,1956 and which allows department to by-pass official liquidator. Further by operation of law, dues of pre-liquidation period have been considered as settled under provisions of the Companies Act, 1956 as indicated above even as per the Court's order. Therefore, we are not convinced that from assets sold through auction, any dues can be recovered from the purc....
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....siness itself, that he would be responsible to discharge the liability of Central Excise as well. Otherwise, the subsequent purchaser cannot be fastened with the liability relating to the dues of the Government unless there is a specific provision in the Statute, claiming "first charge for the purchaser". As far as Central Excise Act is concerned, there was no such specific provision as noticed in SICOM as well. Proviso to Section 11 is now added by way of amendment in the Act only w.e.f. 10-9-2004. Therefore, we are eschewing our discussion regarding this proviso as that is not applicable insofar as present case is concerned. Accordingly, we thus, hold that insofar as legal position is concerned, UPFC being a secured creditor had priority ....
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....o not constitute a charge over the property. Therefore, in general law, a transferee of a premises cannot be made liable for the dues of the previous owner/occupier. (ii) Where the statutory rules or terms and conditions of supply which are statutory in character, authorise the supplier of electricity to demand from the purchaser of a property claiming reconnection or fresh connection of electricity, the arrears due by the previous owner/occupier in regard to supply of electricity to such premises, the supplier can recover the arrears from a purchaser. Position in this case 13. The appellant did not plead in its defence that any statutory rule or terms and conditions of supply authorised it to demand the dues of p....