2000 (8) TMI 212
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....ty of Rs. 11,34,127/- against them and proposing imposition of personal penalty on the allegation that the appellants have manufactured and clandestinely removed 22,718 pieces of different types of pipes and pipe fittings totally valued at Rs. 74,10,070.28. Apart from above, the notice also proposed to confiscate 934 pieces valued at Rs. 2,20,300.00 which were not accounted for in RG-1 register on the ground that the respondents intended to remove the same clandestinely without payment of central excise duty. 1.3The allegation of clandestine removal was based upon the entries in a private register known as 'khatta'. The Revenue's contention was that the said register contained actual production figures of finished goods which were in exces....
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....ed sector. Hence there was no scope for them to sell to those buyers without proper document. For the seized goods, the said assessee stated that to minimise the cost and to keep scope for rejection they always produced extra quantity which were kept in stock, but these stock were not in marketable stage, hence not recorded, in RG 1. They stated that their system of maintaining record had not been properly gone through by the officers nor they had been given any opportunity to re-present the case. 1.4 The Commissioner in her adjudication order accepted the contention of the assessee. She opined that there was no scope on their part to remove the said product lying in the factory and seized by the central excise officer without payment of c....
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.... respondents have strongly supported the order passed by the Commissioner which is a detailed order taking into consideration the various arguments placed by them before the adjudicating authority. Strong reliance has also been placed upon Tribunal's decision in the case of T.M. Industries v. CCE - 1993 (68) E.L.T. 807 (Tribunal) and in the case of Birla Tyres & Ors. v. CCE, Bhubaneswar - 2000 (126) E.L.T. 1079 (Tri.) = (1999 (33) RLT 52 (CEGAT). 4.We have heard the submissions made from both the sides and have gone through the impugned order passed by the Commissioner. The ld. adjudicating authority has gone by the fact that apart from the entries in the Khatta there is no other corroborative evidence on record to show that the respondent....
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....erms of visual inspection, dimensional and surface inspection and materials character of the goods. The said department coordinates with the external independent 3rd party inspection agency and handles company's both the internal and external inspection and testing responsibility and formalities. The goods after sand blasting operation are directed from the production department to this department wherein complete visual, dimensional, surface inspection and testing take place. The process may lead to rejection of fittings due to various reasons like surface cracks, dimensional defects, surface defects etc., as a result of which the material may be finally termed as either rectifiable or irrepairable and unfit for the job for which it has be....
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....lained earlier do not find their way outside the factory, since the same are not marketable and hence do not appear in the RG-1 as alleged. It remains as stocks/inventory/work-in-progress. Their further narration is that sometimes as lot of many sand blasted fittings are. also kept under the purview of the inspection deptt., which may be under various stages of final finishing i.e. welding/grinding/filing etc. Also there are sand blasted fittings under purview of inspection deptt., which need re-working after inspection for various dimensional defects. These re-working operations include re-mandrill, re-machining, re-repairing, re-grinding and also re-sand blasting. Hence to assume the sand blasting operation as a barometer to determine the....
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....come to a finding that the private records are not reproducing the exact production figures but are showing an inflated figures on account of re-entry of the same items again and again. She has also gone by the fact that if the entire entries made in the Khatta along with the RG-1 register are taken into account it is beyond the total production capacity of the respondents to manufacture such a huge quantity with reference to installed capacity and labour employed in their factory. Another factor which has weighed with the ld. adjudicating authority is that the respondents' buyers are govt. enterprises and public sector undertakings which do not indulge into any illegal purpose. She has observed that the department could not adduce a single....