No full waiver of pre-deposit unless assessee proves that undue hardship is caused

 Brief Facts of the case:

A show cause notice was issued to the appellant (assessee company) and others dated by the Additional Director General, DGCEI, Zonal Unit, Mumbai after it was revealed in the investigation that the appellant received cenvatable invoices from the Jammu based manufacturers in favour of itself without undertaking delivery of the goods mentioned there under. While arriving at the said conclusion, the said authorities recorded the statements of Shri Kesvalchand G. Jain the broker of the appellant, amongst other statements and evidence collected by the said authorities. The Commissioner of Central Excise, Mumbai-II, the respondent herein, after hearing the parties to the show cause notice an order-in-original dated 30th September 2013 thereby confirming and ordering the recovery of wrongly availed CENVAT credit totally amounting to Rs.96,31,754/- on the 20 consignments from the appellant under the provisions of Rule 14 of the Cenvat Credit Rules, 2004 read with Section 11A (4) of the Central Excise Act, 1994. It was further ordered that the appellant is also liable to pay the interest on the amount aforestated. The Commissioner of Central Excise in its order-in-original also imposed a penalty of Rs.96,31,754/- on the appellant under Rule 15(2) of the Cenvat Credit Rules, 2004 read with Section 11AC of the Central Excise Act, 1994.

The said Authority was further pleased to impose penalty of Rs.5 lakhs on the Managing Director of the appellant under Rule 26 of the Central Excise Rules, 2002. The appellant preferred an appeal before the Customs, Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal against the order-in-original dated 30th September 2013. The appellant also preferred an application for stay/grant of waiver of pre- deposit of dues therein. By an order dated 10th February 2014, the said stay application was partly allowed by directing the appellant to make a pre-deposit of 50% of the duty demand confirmed against it within a period of eight weeks, as stated herein above.

The appellant challenged the conditional stay allowed by the CESTAT before the Hon’ble High Court.

 Contention of the Assessee:

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