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TMI Blog1987 (9) TMI 201X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... g period of the three preceding sugar years. At a later stage, in response to a show cause notice, the appellant recalculated the refund due as Rs. 8,48,931.44. After holding adjudication proceedings, the Assistant Collector of Central Excise, Aurangabad, passed an order on 18-12-1982 sanctioning only Rs. 3,09,687.98 and rejecting the claim for the balance amount. Briefly put, this order was based on the following considerations :- (i) the appellants factory had no production in the preceding three sugar years; (ii) Notification No. 132/82 did net allow concession to such factories. Only on issue of the amending Notification No. 193/82, dated 11-6-1982, such factories became eligible for the concession. (iii) The amendment was effect ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n during May to September, 1982, would be applicable not only to clearances effected on and after 11-6-1982 out of such production but also to clearances effected prior to 11-6-1982. 4. The question which arises for determination is whether the excess production of sugar by the appellant s factory during the period commencing on 1-5-1982 which was cleared before the issue of the amending Notification No. 193/82 on 11-6-1982, was entitled to duty concession in terms of Notification No. 132/82. 5. This very issue had come up before this Tribunal in the case of Collector of Central Excise, Aurangabad v. Belapur Sugar and Allied Industries Ltd. Haregaon, report in 1986 (23) E.L.T. 252. As noted therein, there is no dispute in the present ca ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 1969 SC 1114. In para 13 of the report, the Court observed as follows :- 13. Now a law is undoubtedly retrospective if the law says so expressly but it is not always necessary to say so expressly to make the law retrospective. There are occasions when a law may be held to be retrospective in operation. Retrospection is not to be presumed for the presumption is the other way but many statutes have been regarded as retrospective without a declaration. Thus it is that remedial statutes are always regarded as prospective but declaratory statutes are considered retrospective. Similarly sometimes statutes have a retrospective effect when the declared intention is clearly and unequivocally manifest from the language employed in the particular l ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... stituting clause as inserted on 11-6-1982. One could perhaps say that in the light of these words, the benefit of the said Clause 4 must be extended backwards upto 1-5-1982 in which event only the said entire production could be brought within the purview of the clause. But, then, as pointed out in the Belapur Sugar and Allied Industries case (supra), we come up immediately against the provisions of Central Excise Rule 9A, which enjoins that the rate of duty shall be that in force on the date of clearance of the excisable goods. Further, the Supreme Court has held in the Cannonore Spinning and Weaving Mills case (supra) that the rule making authority has no power to issue notifications with retrospective effect. 7. Shri Deshmukh has cit ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... eriod or periods in which it did not produce during the said three sugar years shall be ignored while arriving at the average . If this clause is read along with Clause 4 as it existed prior to 11-6-1982, it is clear that Clause 3 was intended to cover cases where there was nil production in any of the preceding three sugar years whereas Clause 4 was intended to cover cases where production during all the preceding three sugar years was nil. 10. Shri Deshmukh further contends that if Notification No. 193/82 is not considered to have retrospective effect, then special Excise duty could not be levied and collected on sugar between 11-5-1982 when Finance Bill, 1982, became an Act and 11-6-1982 when Notification No. 193/82 invoking, inter a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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