TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (9) TMI 427
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....ated 25.06.2008, No. 3069912 dated 27.06.2008, No.3080903 dated 08.07.2008 and No.3084299 dated 11.07.2008 and no export duty was assessed on these shipping bills. JSW paid export duty @ 15% of FOB Price of the steel products exported. The CBEC, vide circular No.18/2008Cus dated 10.11.2008 clarified that a policy decision has been taken that till 31.12.2008, the existing practice of computation of export duty and cesses by taking the FOB price as the cum-duty price may be continued and that with effect from 1st January 2009, the practice of computation of export duty shall be changed and that for the purposes of calculation of export duty, the transaction value, that is to say the price actually paid or payable for the goods for delivery at the time and place of exportation under Section 14 of the Customs Act, 1962 shall be the FOB price of such goods at the time and place of exportation. The Circular also conveyed that the opinion obtained from the Ministry of Law is that the decision on the issue of procedure for calculation of assessable value for the purpose of charging export duty is essentially a matter of policy on which decision is to be taken by the administrative departme....
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....t cases were referred to the Export Department for correction and computation of the appropriate export duty, which the Export Department re-quantified accordingly. c) The cause of action for seeking refund arose only upon issuance of the Circular dated 10.11.2008. The claimant filed the refund claim on 30.01.2009, which falls well within one year from the date of the Circular. d) This case involves modification of the original assessment in light of the said Circular concerning computation of value under Section 14 of the Customs Act, 1962 for levy of export duty. The duty earlier paid under the then-prevailing method was corrected/modified by the Assistant Commissioner, Export, on 21.09.2015, and the correct duty liability was recomputed as per Section 14 considering the Circular instructions. Such correction amounts to a re-assessment, bringing the case squarely within the ambit of Section 27(1B)(c) of the Customs Act. Since the re-assessment occurred on 21.09.2015, the limitation period commences from that date, rendering the refund claim well within the statutory time limit. e) The Export Group re-assessed the shipping bills based on the Circular dat....
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....t an error in computing export duty by treating FOB value as assessable value instead of cum-duty value can be corrected under Section 154 by re-assessing the shipping bills under Section 17(4); it contains no discussion of refund of excess duty paid after such re-assessment under Section 27. 6. Aggrieved by the Impugned Order, the Appellant, having filed Appeal No. C/41996/2016 regarding the refund claim for the principal amount and Appeal No. C/41997/2016 regarding the claim of interest, is now before this Tribunal. 7. Shri. Rohan Muralidharan, the Ld. Advocate appearing for the Appellant made his submissions on both the appeals, which as summarised in the common written synopsis, raised the following grounds: A. Limitation runs from the date of rectification of the Impugned Shipping Bills 7.1. The refund claim under Section 27, as it stood during the period of dispute, stems from payment of excess duty in pursuance of an order of assessment; the limitation period is triggered only when an amount is paid pursuant to such an order. 7.2. In the present case, the subject goods were exported vide duty-free shipping bills and no export duty was assesse....
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....ashik, 2018 (359) E.L.T. 113 (Bom.); Messrs Aculife Health Care Pvt. Ltd. & Anr. v. Union of India & Ors., 2025 (2) TMI 501 (Guj.); CCE Bangalore v. KVR Construction, 2012 (26) STR 195 (Kar.), maintained 2018 (14) GSTL J70 (S.C.); 3E Infotech v. CESTAT, Commissioner of Central Excise (Appeals-I), 2018 (7) TMI 276 (Mad.); and Oil and Natural Gas Commission Ltd. v. Commissioner of Customs, Central Excise & Service Tax, Dibrugarh, 2025 (4) TMI 882. C. Section 27 limitation does not apply in the absence of an order of assessment 7.8. Section 27 provides for refund of duty paid in terms of an order of assessment under Section 17(2) or 17(4). Under Section 16, the applicable rate of export duty is the rate in force on the date of the Let Export Order. 7.9. On a perusal of the hard copies of the subject shipping bills along with let export orders, it is seen that no duty was assessed on any of the shipping bills. Where no order of assessment has been passed, the amount must be regarded as duty not assessed, and the Section 27 time limit does not arise. D. The refund amount does not partake the character of "duty" 7. 10. The term "duty" under Se....
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....payable. 12. We find that the contentions of the appellant at Grounds B and D, as noticed above, both seek to displace Section 27 limitation altogether, Ground B via the contention that limitation runs from discovery of the mistake and thus attracts Section 17 of the Limitation Act, 1963 and Ground D via Article 265, namely, that an amount collected without authority of law is not "duty". In our considered view, arguments advanced on both these routes were foreclosed by the Nine-Judge Bench in Mafatlal Industries Ltd. v. Union of India, 1996 INSC 1514 : (1997) 5 SCC 536 : 1997 (89) E.L.T. 247 (S.C.). The Honourable Apex Court, in its answer to the first question posed therein, has unequivocally held that any claim for refund founded on mis-construction, mis-application, or wrong interpretation of a provision of law, rule, notification or regulation lies only under Section 27, and Section 72 of the Contract Act and, by the same logic, Section 17 of the Limitation Act, cannot be used to import an alternative limitation trigger ousting or ignoring that stipulated in a self-contained statute. That bar is not confined to mistakes discovered through a judgment in another assessee'....
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....overed in 2009. Ground B accordingly fails on facts as well as in law. 14. As we had observed supra, the decision in Mafatlal Industries, held that the theory of mistake of law, and the limitation under Section 17 of the Limitation Act, cannot be invoked to bypass a self-contained refund provision such as Section 27. It was also held that Article 265 furnishes no independent route to refund for amounts collected by misinterpretation of a provision, as distinct from amounts collected under a provision later declared unconstitutional. The Judgement of the Apex Court in Escorts Ltd. v. Union of India, 1998 (97) E.L.T. 211 (S.C.), submitted by the Appellant, in a customs case, confirms that a specific limitation provision such as Section 27 displaces the general law, distinguishing Shri Vallabh Glass Works Ltd. v. Union of India, (1984) 3 SCC 362, on the ground that no such dedicated provision existed in that case. This Bench applied the same reasoning in M/s. Metec Construction Technology Pvt. Ltd. v. Commissioner of GST and Central Excise, Final Order No.40761/2025 dated 24.07.2025, following Veer Overseas Ltd. v. CCE, Panchkula, 2018 (15) GSTL 59 (TriLB), ONGC v. Commissioner of ....
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....curred at all, as that goes further than the facts of this case allow. That, however, does not disturb the outcome and in fact it narrows it. The only figure that can be said to have been assessed, in the sense of having been arrived at through the proper officer's satisfaction, is the amount the EDI system itself indicated, the cum-duty computation, which was the practice in vogue as later confirmed by the Circular. The excess amount actually paid by challan, over and above that indicated figure, finds no reflection in the subject SBs, the Let Export Orders, or any other contemporaneous assessment record. Nothing on record shows the proper officer examining, requiring, or assessing this additional amount. Its existence as excess duty comes to light only through the Note dated 21.09.2015. It is this excess, not the duty liability as a whole, that remained unassessed until that Note, and it is only in respect of this excess that Grounds A and C have some force. 16. Section 2(2) of the Customs Act, as then in force, defined "assessment" to include "reassessment". The Note dated 21.09.2015, recomputed the duty consistent with the Circular dated 10.11.2008 and pursuant to this T....
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....id analysis and for the reasons given above, we hold that the refund claim was not time-barred. Order-in-Original No.44746/2016, sanctioning refund of Rs.1,61,96,066/-, was correctly passed. The Impugned Order, to the extent it allows the Revenue's appeal and rejects the Appellant's, is set aside. Appeal No. C/41996/2016 is allowed. 19. As regards the Appeal No.C/41997/2016, we find that in Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. v. Union of India, 2011 (273) E.L.T. 3 (S.C.), construing the pari materia Section 11BB of the Central Excise Act, 1944, the Hon'ble Supreme Court held that interest on a delayed refund runs from expiry of three months from the date of receipt of the refund application and not from the date of the order sanctioning refund, and unaffected by the pendency of appellate proceedings. Thus, the law is settled that Revenue cannot escape interest liability merely because its own wrongful rejection of an otherwise ascertained claim occasioned appellate proceedings and consequent delay. 20. However, we are of the considered view that such a premise does not translate, without modification, to the present facts. Our finding recorded above on limitation rests on t....