CESTAT Upholds Rejection of Refund claim filed u/s 27 of Customs Act on ground of Inclusion of Correctly paid Duty in Assessable Value [Read Order]

The Chandigarh bench of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT) upheld the rejection of a refund claim filed under section 27 of the Customs Act,1962 on the ground of Inclusion of correctly paid duty in an assessable value. 

Himachal Futuristic Communications Limited, the appellant assessee appealed against the order passed by the first appellate authority for rejecting the refund claim filed under section 27 of the Customs Act. 

Surjeet Bhadu and Veer Singh, the counsels for the assessee contended that the sole ground of rejection of the appeal was that the certificate produced by the assessee only say that they had paid excise duty on the software and recovered the total value of software and not recovered any amount over and above the value of software as indicated in the certificate. 

Further submitted that the rejection made by the first appellate authority was not as per the law and liable to be deleted. 

Amandeep Kumar, the counsel for the department relied on the decisions made by the lower authorities and contended that the excise duty charged on the software had been mentioned in the invoices; the appellant has collected duty at the rate of 16% on the combined value of hardware and software. 

It was also submitted that the invoice being a statutory document was evidence for either availing CENVAT or refund and the assessee had fulfilled the requirement of Section 12A of Central Excise Act, 1944 and not eligible for the refund filed by the assessee. 

The bench observed that the invoice issued under statutory provisions does not indicate that the incidence of duty had not been passed on and the appeal filed by the assessee does not contains any merit. 

The two-member bench comprising S.S Garg (Judicial) and Anjani Kumar (Technical) held that the assessee was not eligible for the refund claim as per the law and upheld the decision of the first appellate authority while dismissing the appeal filed by the assessee. 

To Read the full text of the Order CLICK HERE

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