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2009 (6) TMI 510 - AT - Central ExciseAdjudication- RUDs- The appellants challenge the order passed by the Commissioner at Panaji, Goa, whereby the authority apart from demanding the duty and interest payable thereon, has also imposed penalty against each of the appellants. The impugned order is sought to be challenged by the company and its Directors on two grounds, namely, failure on the part of the authorities to comply with the basic principles of natural justice inasmuch as that the appellants were not furnished with copies of all the documents relied upon and the documents which were seized in the course of investigation were not returned and their request for cross examination of the persons whose statements were recorded was rejected and secondly on the ground that admittedly the cash amount, which was recovered in the course of investigation from the premises of the appellant company was to the tune of Rs.30,67,989/- in the month of February, 2005 and a sum of Rs.16,77,482/- in the month of March, 2005 and considering the same the duty amount could not have exceeded the sum of Rs.15,46,229/-. The challenge on behalf of the employees of the appellants is that they had carried out their duties under the instructions from their masters and, therefore, they could not have been penalized in the matter as they had not done anything with the intention of evading the duty but had merely performed their obligation towards their masters. The challenge on behalf of the purchaser is to the effect that the appellant is not covered by the expression “person” under Rule 26 of the Central Excise Rules, 2002 and that the company is not a natural person and hence could not have been subjected to penalty under the said Rule. Held that-. However, in this case, as we have already held that the failure on the part of the authorities to furnish all the relied upon relevant documents has resulted in violation of basic principles of natural justice and the same is sufficient to set aside the impugned order, it is not necessary to deal with the said issue in detail and suffice to observe that the respondents are duty bound to follow the said circular in relation to the seized documents, which are not relied upon. In the result, the appeals filed by the company and its Directors as well as its employees are allowed in the above terms and the matters are remanded to the adjudicating authority for fresh decision on the basis of observation given above.
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