The Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT), Chandigarh Bench held that the CESTAT’s Order allowing refund claims for Education Cess attained Finality as Revenue failed to Challenge before Higher Authority.
The Tribunal has passed the orders sanctioning the refund claim of the appellant, M/s Insecticides India Ltd. Instead of implementing the orders of this Tribunal, the authorities below passed the impugned orders rejecting the refund claim of the appellant.
As per the orders of this Tribunal, the refund claims of the appellants for education cess and higher education cess were allowed and it was also held in some of the cases that the refund claim/ self credit cannot be restricted in terms of Notification Nos. 19/2008-CE dt. 27.03.2008 and 34/2008-CE dt. 10.06.2008 and the appellants are entitled to claim the refund/self credit of duty paid through PLA in terms of Notification No. 56/2002-CE dt. 14.11.2002. Pursuant to the above orders passed by this Tribunal, the appellants approached the adjudicating authority for sanctioning the refund claim. The adjudicating authority partly sanctioned the refund claim and partly rejected the refund claim. The ld. Commissioner (Appeals) had gone through the orders of the adjudicating authority. Although the same was not challenged by the Revenue before the Commissioner (Appeals) but he sought the recovery of the refund claim earlier sanctioned by the adjudicating authority.
The appellants submitted that the orders passed by the Tribunal have never been challenged by the Revenue in appeal before the higher authority, therefore, the orders of this Tribunal have attained finality. Therefore, the authorities below are duty-bound to implement the orders of this Tribunal. The impugned orders are in gross violation of judicial discipline. Moreover, the Commissioner (Appeals) has sought the recovery of the refund claim partly sanctioned by the adjudicating authority, which is bad in law. The coram of Judicial Member, Ashok Jindal ruled that earlier orders of this Tribunal have been accepted by the Revenue and no appeal has been filed against those orders. In the absence of any challenge to the orders of this Tribunal, the adjudicating authority was duty-bound to implement the orders of this Tribunal which they failed to do so. Further, in the earlier round of litigation, the orders of this Tribunal were final.
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