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Issues Involved:
1. Whether the recovery of excise duty from the petitioners is time-barred under Rule 10 of the Excise Rules, 1944. 2. Whether the recovery proceedings and citations issued are valid without reopening the assessment. Issue-wise Detailed Analysis: 1. Whether the recovery of excise duty from the petitioners is time-barred under Rule 10 of the Excise Rules, 1944: The petitioners argued that since no notice was issued within the prescribed period under Rule 10 of the Excise Rules, 1944, the recovery of the amounts mentioned in the citations had become time-barred. Rule 10, as it stood at the relevant time, required that notices for recovery of duties not levied or paid, short-levied, or erroneously refunded be issued within six months from the relevant date. The court examined the specific provisions of Rule 10 and Section 11A of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944, which incorporated Rule 10. The court noted that Rule 10 applied to cases where an assessment had been made but the duty had been short-levied or erroneously refunded. The court cited previous judgments, including N.B. Sanjana v. E.S. & W. Mills and Asstt. Collectors Central Excise v. N.T. Co. of India Ltd., to emphasize that Rule 10 applied to cases where an assessment was sought to be reopened. The court concluded that Rule 10 did not apply to cases where a correct assessment had been made, and only the assessed amount was sought to be realized. For such cases, Section 11 of the Act, which prescribes no limitation for recovery, was applicable. 2. Whether the recovery proceedings and citations issued are valid without reopening the assessment: The court found that the recovery proceedings and citations issued were valid as the earlier assessments were not sought to be reopened. The court emphasized that Rule 10 and Section 11A applied to cases where an earlier assessment was sought to be reopened due to short-levy or nil assessment. Since the assessments in the instant cases were not being reopened, but only the assessed amounts were being recovered, the limitation period under Rule 10 did not apply. The court also addressed the petitioners' argument regarding the words "or not paid" and "any duty assessed has not been paid in full" in Rule 10. The court interpreted these words to mean "short-paid" as used in Section 11A(1) and clarified that the limitation period was for reopening assessments, not for recovering assessed dues. The court cited the Statement of Objects and Reasons for incorporating Rule 10 into Section 11A to support this interpretation. Conclusion: The court dismissed the writ petitions, finding no merit in the petitioners' arguments. The recovery proceedings and citations issued were deemed valid, and the limitation period under Rule 10 did not apply as the assessments were not being reopened. The court concluded that the respondents had the jurisdiction to recover the assessed amounts from the petitioners. There was no order as to costs.
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