Case Law Details
V.K. Aggarwal Vs Commissioner of Central Tax (CESTAT Delhi)
CESTAT Delhi held that when the demand of duty has been settled under SVLDR Scheme, the imposition of penalty would fail on simple ground that if the appellants had applied under the said scheme, they would have paid ‘nil’ duty.
Facts- On the basis of an information received from Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI) that Shri Amit Gupta, Director of M/s. Progressive Alloys India Pvt. Ltd. along with associated registered dealer units viz. M/s. Forward Minerals, M/s. Unnati Alloys Pvt. Ltd., M/s. Metal Alloys Pvt. Ltd. and M/s. Brilliant Metals Pvt. Ltd. was passing in- admissible cenvat credit to various manufacturers of excisable goods without physical delivery of the goods. An investigation was carried out and it was observed that M/s. Moral Alloys had issued bogus invoices to the company without actual supply of the goods and on the ba-sis of the fake invoices, the company availed the cenvat credit amounting to Rs.5,93,906/-. Show cause notice dated 31.03.2017 proposing reversal of credit along with interest and penalty under the provisions of Cenvat Credit Rules (CCR), 2004 was issued. A penalty under Rule 15 (2) of CCR, 2004 read with Rule 26 of Cenvat Credit Rules, 2002 was proposed on all the Directors of the company.
The Company filed an application vide Form – SVLDRS-I, Sabka Vish-was (Legacy Dispute Resolution) Scheme, 2019 on 31.12.0219. The said application was accepted and a discharge certificate was issued on 8.7.2020 showing complete and final discharge of the duty liability. Consequently, the company was exonerated from all the charges leveled in the show cause notice.
The Adjudicating Authority vide Order dated 30.03.2022 noted the fact of issuance of discharge certificate under the SVLDR Scheme in favour of the company and observed that the matter cannot be adjudicated any further against the company, however, he proceeded to consider the show cause notice against the co-noticees and decided the issue against them imposing penalty.
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