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2013 (10) TMI 627 - AT - CustomsRefund – Unjust Enrichment - Held that:- Commissioner of Customs vs Virudhunagar Textile Mills Ltd. [2008 (1) TMI 350 - HIGH COURT MADRAS ] - the legal presumption of unjust enrichment gets rebutted if the assessee produces a certificate of Chartered Accountant together with the balance sheet - not only has the balance sheet been produced in support of the CA's certificate but ledger accounts, journal voucher entries as well as certificates of the Accounts personnel and clarificatory certificate of the Auditor have been placed on record - These certificates are not blank certificates containing mere opinion of an Auditor but give detailed and specific reference to the primary documents of accounting entries, i.e. journal vouchers and trace such entries right till the published balance sheets. The CA’s certificate does not refer to any entry posted after 17.02.2009 - Even though the balance sheet of the company is drawn up on 31.3.2009, an auditor can always issue a certificate in the course of the financial year, certifying the entries made in the books of account in the course of the year - The revenue, while alleging lacunas in the certificate presumes that accounts are drawn up only at the year end and not before that - This assumption is absurd as any assessee, particularly companies of the assessee's size and operations, would maintain regular books of account in the course of the year - The certificate of the Chartered Accountant dated 17.02.2009 clearly states that in the beginning itself that the said certificate was issued on verification of the books of account of the company - There is nothing wrong in the CA's certificate. The other discrepancy which has been pointed out in the revenue's appeal is that the assessee had initially claimed before the lower authority that it was not maintaining a bill of entry-wise ledger, though later on the auditor was able to give reconciliation between the balance sheet and the bill of entry - It was clarified by the counsel for the respondent that no ledger is ever maintained bill of entry wise and therefore the clarification given by the assessee to the lower authority was perfectly correct - The clarification, however, did not imply that no ledgers are maintained by the assessee - From the ledgers, the journal vouchers and the journal entries contained in the ledgers it was possible to correlate the excess payments shown as "receivable" with the specific bill of entry - There was, therefore, no contradiction whatsoever in the stand taken by the assessee. The costs which are required to be added under the established cost accounting principles are obviously costs which are in the nature of expenses incurred and debited to the books of account - If a particular amount has not been debited as expenditure in the books and shown straightway as "receivables from the customers", the same would naturally be accounted towards cost of the finished product - The cost of products as per the CAS-4 can only include expenditure which is shown in the books and not amounts deposited which are receivables from the party with whom it had been deposited – Decided against Revenue.
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