Cus - Refund - Even if more than one claim is filed, same cannot be denied only on ground that Circular prescribes only one refund claim in month because otherwise statutory time limit of one year will become redundant: CESTAT
By TIOL News Service
MUMBAI, FEB 13, 2015: THE appellant had filed refund claim of Rs. 6,05,866/- on 24.05.2013 in terms of Notification No. 102/2007-Cus dated 14/9/2007. Incidentally, the appellant had already filed a separate refund claim on 6/5/2013 for an amount of Rs. 21,92,938/-.
The said refund claim of Rs.6.05L was rejected by the adjudicating authority on the ground that appellant violated the condition of Para 4.2 of CBEC Circular No. 06/2008-Cus dated 28/4/2008.
Paragraph 4.2 reads thus -
| 4.2. It is also clarified that only a single claim against a particular Bill of Entry should be permitted to be filed within the maximum time period of one year. Filing of refund claim for a part quantity in a bill of entry shall not be allowed except when this is necessary at the end of the one year period. Further, since the Sales Tax (ST) / Value Added Tax (VAT) is being paid on periodical or monthly basis, even in case of bills of entry where the entire quantity of goods are sold within a month, all such cases shall be consolidated in a single refund claim and filed with the Customs authorities on a monthly basis. In other words, there would be a single refund claim in respect of one importer in a month irrespective of the number of Bills of Entry (B/Es) processed by the respective Commissionerate. |
As the Commissioner(Appeals) upheld the findings of the original authority & rejected their appeal, the appellant is before the CESTAT.
The Bench inter alia observed -
++ From the careful reading of the para (4.2), it is clear that though the procedure is prescribed that there would be a single refund claim in respect of one importer in a month irrespective of the number of Bills of Entry, in the present case the first claim was filed on 6/5/2013 for the quantity of goods sold. However, the quantity covered under the present refund claim were unsold, therefore, these two bills of entry could not have been included in the first claim which was made on 6/5/2013. As regard the quantity of the present claim,the goods were sold during the period 12/05/2013-20/05/2013.
++ If the contention of the lower authority is accepted and if the appellant is barred in filing the present refund claim in the month of May 2013 then option is that they should have filed this claim in the month of June 2013. It is observed from the date of challan towards payment of duty, both the payments were made on 26/05/2012 and 01/6/2012. If the appellant would have filed both the refund claim in the month of Jun 2013 then statutory time limit of one year would have expired and they become ineligible for this claim.
++ In the Board Circular also consciously, understanding this situation, clarified that the exception is provided in case if the one year period is going to expire. It is very obvious that it is not intention of the Board Circular that even though the period of one year is getting expired, the assessee is not allowed to file more than one refund claim in a month. In my view even if more than one claim in a month is filed the same cannot be denied only because of the reason that circular prescribed only one refund claim in a month otherwise statutory time limit of one year provided in the notification will become redundant.
Holding that the appellant is entitled for the refund claim, the appeal was allowed.
