Court No. - 35
Case :- CENTRAL EXCISE APPEAL No. - 52 of 2017 Appellant :- M/S Akanksha Steels Pvt. Ltd. Respondent :- The Commissioner Of Central Excise Counsel for Appellant :- A.P. Mathur Counsel for Respondent :- Praveen Kumar,C.S.C.
Hon'ble Bharati Sapru,J. Hon'ble Neeraj Tiwari,J.
Heard Shri A.P. Mathur, learned counsel for the assessee and Shri Parv Agrawal, learned counsel for the department.
This is an appeal filed by the assessee under Section 35-G of the Central Excise Act, 1944 against an order passed by the Tribunal dated 09.08.2012. This appeal is admitted by the order of this court on 10.03.2017 on the following question of law.
"1. Whether the Hon'ble Tribunal was justified in sustaining the order of imposition of penalty when the duty demand does not survive as the same stands deposited much prior to the issuance of the show cause notice ?"
This issue has already been decided inter-parties by this Court in Central Excise Appeal No.482 of 2007 in favour of the assessee. The reduction of penalty even to rupees one lac is not justified as it is a matter of record that the excise duties have been paid along with interest even before issuance of show-cause notice for the penalty. Even the bare minimum penalty was not justified.
The question of law is, therefore, answered in favour of the assessee and against the department.
The appeal is accordingly allowed.
Order Date :- 23.2.2018 pks