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TMI Blog2012 (12) TMI 1143X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ption. The petitioners claim to be manufacturer of chewing tobacco and got registration with the Directorate of Industries and Commerce, Government of Assam vide Provisional Registration Certificate (PRC) on 7-3-2000. It commenced production on 2-5-2000 and obtained Central Excise Registration (CER) on 18-2-2000. The Notification No. 32/99-C.E., dated 8-7-99 provides for benefit of refund of excise duty to the units located in a specified area and commencing production after the specified date in pursuance of industrial policy of Govt. of India announced in 1997 to stimulate the industrial development in the North-East Region. According to the petitioners, they claimed the benefit of the said exemption. The impugned notice was issued allegi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he letter of the Director of Industries, Govt. of Assam, dated 25-5-2000 and 23-6-2000. The petitioners started manufacturing on the strength of PRC without setting up of a pharmaceutical unit and/or obtaining the industrial licence and therefore, the petitioners were not entitled to the benefit of exemption of excise duty. The petitioners obtained Industrial Entrepreneur Memorandum (IEM) from Govt. of India on 6-2-2001 and 9-4-2001 in which case, PMT was not necessary, but for the period from 2000 to 2001, the petitioners did not have IEM or PMT which justified issuance of the show cause notice. The petitioners had made investment of ₹ 27.7 lakhs, but claimed refund of ₹ 3,96,27,344/-. The petitioners have alternative remedy of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... a) cigarettes falling under Chapter 24 of the First Schedule or the Second Schedule to the Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985 (5 of 1986); and (b) pan masala containing tobacco, falling under sub-heading No. 2106.00 or 2404.49, as the case may be, of the First Schedule or the Second Schedule to the said Central Excise Tariff Act. ; 8th July, 1999 1st March, 2011 (ii) for the proviso, as inserted by clause (i), the following proviso shall be substituted, namely :- Provided that the exemption contained in this notification shall not be applicable to the goods falling under Chapter 24 ; 6. Validity of Section 154 of the Finance A ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... withdrawal of the exemption, all of them without exception immediately closed down their cigarette manufacturing units and a large majority have shifted out of the State. Clearly, if the grant of the exemption had operated as it was intended to, it would have been unnecessary to enact Section 154. 25. The High Court may have been right in construing the exemption notification as it stood. Yet the respondent can contend that the words should have been used in the exemption so as to provide for sufficient safeguards to ensure that the benefit of exemption was granted only to those industries which would in turn permanently invest in the State. By the retrospective enactment this defective expression of the object of the policy, was rectifi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e above submission by submitting that grant of exemption has to be seen in the context of objects of Industrial Policy and the Revenue cannot suffer loss when the object for which the benefit of exemption was given was not achieved which justified enactment of Section 154 for retrospectively withdrawing the benefit of exemption. Reliance has also been placed on observations in the judgments of the Hon ble Supreme Court in R.C. Tobacco, supra and the following : (A) Hemraj Gordhandas v. H.H. Dave, Assistant Commissioner of Central Excise and Customs, Surat and Others, AIR 1970 SC 755 = 1978 (2) E.L.T. J350 (S.C.), Para 5. (B) Tata Oil Mills Co. Ltd. v. Collector of Central Excise, (1989) 4 SCC 541 = 1989 (43) E.L.T. 183 (S.C.), ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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