Customs, Excise and Gold Tribunal - Mumbai
Commissioner Of Central Excise vs Mukand Ltd. on 28 September, 1999
Equivalent citations: 1999(114)ELT981(TRI-MUMBAI)
ORDER Gowri Shankar, Member (T)
1. The following two questions are posed for reference to the High Court in the department's application : (1) Whether Modvat credit can be allowed on the inputs, if the process carried out on the inputs do not amounts to manufacture; (2) Whether the declaration filed under Rule 57G for "availing Modvat" even though the process carried are not manufacturing process under Section 2(f), if so, the said declaration would amounts to mis-declaration?
2. We have heard both sides.
3. The Tribunal was concerned with whether Modvat credit of the duty paid on the inputs used by the appellants in its processes of annealing and pickling of wire rods would be recoverable within the extended period specified in the proviso to Rule 57-I(1). The Tribunal did not accept the contention raised on behalf of the appellant that the processes of annealing and pick ling amounted to manufacture. It noted that pickling was nothing more than cleaning the surface of the rods and did not impart any additional qualities to the goods that they did not possess earlier. It had observed that position was somewhat less clear with regard to annealing. It noted that the decision of the Tribunal that such annealing amounts to manufacture. It however, did not proceed to pursue this line but proceeded to dispose of on the question of limitation. The first question therefore does not arise out of the Tribunal's order.
4. The Tribunal in its order noted that, given the status of the law and various decisions, holding some processes to be manufacture, and some others not to be manufacture, it was possible for the assessee to hold the view that the two processes amounted to manufacture. It therefore found an absence of intention to evade duty, noting that such an intention is required under law for that the extended period specified in proviso (1) to Rule 57-I to apply. It is well settled that to attract extended period, it is only such or misstatement or suppression with an intention to evade duty that would be relevant. A genuine mistake of bona fide would not. It is the absence of wilful misstatement that the Tribunal found; the second question does not address this issue. It is not very clearly worded. What it apparently asks is whether declaration that the processes of annealing and pickling, which was stated in the classification list as processes which were applied to rods would amount to wilful misstatement within the meaning of Rule 57-I. The question as to whether the declaration made, without demarkable intend to evade duty would justify the invocation of extended period has already been answered by the Supreme Court in its judgment in Pushpam Pharmaceuticals v. C.C.E., 1997 (78) E.L.T. 649 and other judgments.
5. Application therefore dismissed.