The Ahmedabad Bench of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal ( CESTAT ), observed that order without specific finding for imposition of penalty is not speaking order.
The appellant in the present matter is Unnati Alloys Pvt Ltd.
The appeals are directed against the impugned order passed by the Commissioner whereby the appellants were imposed penalties under Rule 26 (2) of Central Excise Rules, 2002. These penalties were imposed in connection with fraudulent passing/ availment of cenvat credit by M/s Chandra Proteco Ltd.
Jitendra Singh, Counsel along with Ms. Reena Rawat, Advocate appeared for the appellants and submitted that as per the impugned order there is no independent finding against the appellants and the adjudicating authority has directly imposed the penalty without giving any reasoning. Therefore, the order imposing penalty on the appellants is not sustainable.
The Counsel further contended that the entire basis for imposing the penalty on the appellant is demolished. In this regard he referred to the copy of master data extracted from the site of ROC and pointed out that during the relevant time Shri Nitin Bansal and Deepak Bansal were the directors. Therefore, the adjudicating authority, imposed penalty on the appellant treating him as the director of the Unnati Alloys is not sustainable.
Vijay G. Iyengar, Assistant Commissioner (AR) appearing on behalf of the Revenue reiterated the finding of the impugned order.
The Bench comprising of Ramesh Nair, Judicial Member observed that “The appellant could not represent their case before the Adjudicating Authority. Therefore, there is a clear violation of the principles of natural justice. It is also observed that the Adjudicating Authority in the impugned order has not given any specific finding for imposition of penalty on the appellants. Therefore, the impugned order is not a speaking order.”
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