By TIOL News Service

MUMBAI, JUNE 08, 2015: THESE are appeals filed by the CCE, Pune against the orders passed by the Commissioner(Appeals).

For ease of reference, the provisions of s.35B of the CEA, 1944 are reproduced below -

Section 35B. Appeals to the Appellate Tribunal.-  (1) Any person aggrieved by any of the following orders may appeal to the Appellate Tribunal against such order-

(a) a decision or order passed by the Collector of Central Excise as an adjudicating authority;

(b) an order passed by the Collector (Appeals) under section 35A;

(c) an order passed by the Central Board of Excise and Customs constituted under the Central Boards of Revenue Act, 1963 (54 of 1963) (hereafter in this Chapter referred to as the Board) or the Appellate Collector of Central Excise under section 35, as it stood immediately before the appointed day;

(d) an order passed by the Board or the Collector of Central Excise, either before or after the appointed day, under section 35A, as it stood immediately before that day:

Provided that no appeal shall lie to the Appellate Tribunal and the Appellate Tribunal shall not have jurisdiction to decide any appeal in respect of any order referred to in clause (b) if such order relates to,-

(a) a case of loss of goods, where the loss occurs in transit from a factory to a warehouse, or to another factory, or from one warehouse to another, or during the course of processing of the goods in a warehouse or in storage, whether in a factory or in a warehouse;

(b) a rebate of duty of excise on goods exported to any country or territory outside India or on excisable materials used in the manufacture of goods which are exported to any country or territory outside India;

(c) goods exported outside India (except to Nepal or Bhutan) without payment of duty;

(d) credit of any duty allowed to be utilised towards payment of excise duty on final products under the provisions of this Act or the rules made thereunder and such order is passed by the Commissioner (Appeals) on or after the date appointed under section 109 of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1998.

The Bench observed that the matter relates to rebate of duty of excise on goods exported.

After considering the provisions of s.35B of the CEA, 1944, the Bench passed the following order -

"3. As per Clause (b) of proviso to Section 35B (1) - No appeal shall lie to the Appellate Tribunal and the Appellate Tribunal shall not have jurisdiction to decide any appeal in respect of any order referred to in clause (b) of Section 35B (1) if such order relates to rebate of duty of excise on goods exported to any country or territory outside India. In view of this position, this Tribunal have no jurisdiction to entertain such appeals and the appeals filed by the Revenue are therefore, not maintainable and are dismissed. However, in the interest of justice, Revenue is at liberty to file appeal before the appropriate forum."

The Appeals were disposed of in the above terms.

In passing: Even after all these years, why is it that the Revenue keeps knocking on the wrong door. Not to mention the man hours and the stationery spent which has to be repeated for filing the application before the Revisionary authority. NACEN certainly has a task on hand!

(See 2015-TIOL-1055-CESTAT-MUM)