The New Delhi Bench of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT), confirmed the rejection of refund claim on the ground that no document was filed to show that the Deficiency Memo was wrongly issued.
The appellant in the present matter isM/s. S.K. Enterprises. The appeals have been remanded to the Tribunal with the directions to decide these appeals afresh after affording the appellants a reasonable opportunity to meet the objections regarding alleged discrepancies noticed in the refund claim based whereupon the refund claim was rejected by the Tribunal.
The Counsels for the reemphasized upon the Notifications No.102/2007 dated 14.09.2007, Notification No.93/2008 dated 01.08.2008 and Notification No.42/2017 dated 30.06.2017. It is submitted that there has been no discrepancy in their refund claim. The earlier Final Order of this Tribunal bearing No. 51906-51908/2021 dated 28.10.2021 is accordingly prayed to be reviewed / modified in terms of the directions of remand.
The Departmental Representative has submitted that the refund claim was found to be incomplete in addition of it being barred by time at the time of its initial scrutiny vide Discrepancy Memo. The Original Adjudicating Authority had rejected the said claim confirming the claim to be incomplete and barred by time.
The Tribunal of Rachna Gupta, Judicial Member observed that “The Deficiency Memo was issued at the time of scrutiny of said refund claim. But the appellants never replied to the said Deficiency Memo despite a subsequent Memo nor even after the issuance of the Show Cause Notice which proposed the rejection of refund claim for it to be incomplete and barred by time. Appellant even failed to appear before the respective Original Adjudicating Authorities when opportunities of personal hearings were given to them.”
The Bench concluded by noting that the appellants, despite the opportunities given, never responded to Deficiency Memo nor to Show Cause Notice nor even to the notices of personal hearing. Resultantly, the deficiencies already observed at scrutiny level, continued and the refund claims were rejected on both the aspects i.e. for being incomplete and for being barred by time. Hence, the findings for refund claim to be incomplete stand confirmed by the Commissioner (Appeals) also.
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