LG Electronics India Pvt Ltd Vs Commissioner of Customs (Import) (CESTAT Mumbai)
CESTAT Mumbai held that rejection of refund claim on procedural grounds of non-furnishing of documents required to process the claim in invalidated. Accordingly, order set aside and matter restored to original authority.
Facts- M/s LG Electronics India Pvt Ltd is before us on the limited issue of rejection of their appeal before the first appellate authority for alleged failure to furnish documentation, such as bills of entry, duty payment challans, evidence of bar of unjust enrichment having been overcome, certified balance sheet, import invoice and airway bill, and of their plea for deferment owing to pendency of dispute before the Hon’ble Supreme Court on the ground that section 27A of Customs Act, 1962 required claim to be disposed of within three months. The jurisdictional Assistant Commissioner of Customs had noted the absence of these documents and that there was no scope for entertaining refund claims except by of setting aside of assessment orders through appellate mechanism.
Conclusion- The claim for refund was disposed off on procedural grounds of non-furnishing of documents required to process the claim and upheld for no further reason than that the obligation under section 27A of Customs Act, 1962 devolve interest liability. That a tax administration, bound by a statute, woke up to the consequences of keeping an application pending beyond three months after corresponding for over a year and half about the incompleteness thereof and deployed such jeopardy as cause for not awaiting compilation of the documentation by the appellant is strange indeed. An incomplete application does not trigger the consequences apprehended by the first appellate authority.
