Sc Dismisses Sterlite'S Plea In Excise Matter

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed Sterlite Industries' plea seeking a stay on the Madras High Court judgement that asked the company to deposit additional excise duty of Rs 15 crore. A bench headed by Justice D K Jain dismissed the Sterlite's plea. However, it gave the company four weeks' time to deposit the money. According to the company, the orders of the High court and the sectoral tribunal suffer from a "non-application of mind" with respect to the prima facie case and undue hardship. The Madras High Court, while refusing to waive the pre-deposit duty of Rs 15 crore, had remanded the matter for reassessing the duty payable in accordance with the Finance Ministry's circular dated 13th February 2003. Matters where calculation or recalculation is to be made for assessing the value of the goods captively consumed, irrespective of the year of assessment, must be done "in the appropriate manner as per the circular", the High Court had held. According to the Central Board of Excise and Customs circular, valuing goods captively consumed irrespective of the year of assessment is to be done through the Cost and Accounting Standards 4. The Excise Department had issued 17 show-cause notices to Sterlite for recovery of differential duty of more than Rs 86 crore on account of the alleged undervaluation of copper anode between May 1997 and June 2000. According to the company, these notices were based on the Cost Audit Report prepared in March 1998 in respect of the period between July and December 1997. Therefore, the Report could not have furnished the factual basis for the show-cause notices dealing with subsequent periods, it added. The Commissioner of Central Excise, Madurai, had demanded excise duty of more than Rs 86 crore, besides imposed a penalty of Rs 10 crore. However, it reduced the duty amount to around Rs 70.46 crore, as Sterlite had already paid more than Rs 15.20 crore in March 2001. The Customs, Excise & Gold Appellate Tribunal, Mumbai, on Sterlite's plea, seeking waiver of the pre-deposit of the penalty amount, had dismissed its application and asked it to deposit Rs 15 crore within six weeks from 2nd November 2001. However, the principal bench of the tribunal had transferred the appeal to the Chennai tribunal. Aggrieved by the tribunal's verdict, Sterlite had moved the High court seeking restraint against recovery proceedings being initiated by the department. The High Court had dismissed its petition.

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