TMI Blog2021 (12) TMI 792X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... to the claim of refund made by the petitioner, the limitation prescribed under the said provision would also not be applicable and the general provisions under the Limitation Act, 1963 would be applicable. The order of the First Appellate Authority dated 22.10.2012 has become final since the appeal filed against this order was withdrawn by the Revenue thereby accepting the order passed by the Commissioner (Appeals), which indicates that the tax collected was without the authority of law. Moreover, the liability itself for the period covered herein was not there, as observed in the Order-in-Appeal dated 22.10.2012, which casts a serious doubt on the bona fides of the Revenue when Show Cause Notice dated 21.10.2010 was issued demanding th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the appellant approached the Revenue for refund, they were informed that against the Order-in-Appeal (supra) of the First Appellate Authority, the Revenue had filed an appeal before the CESTAT; that the Revenue thereafter chose to withdraw the appeal, whereby the Final Order No. 42836 of 2018 dated 30.10.2018 of the CESTAT was passed and thereafter, on 09.12.2019, the appellant made a refund claim; that a Show Cause Notice dated 02.01.2020 was issued proposing to reject the refund claim as time-barred; that after due process, the Adjudicating Authority, after following various judicial decisions, sanctioned the refund claim vide Order-in-Original No. 04/2020-RF dated 17.02.2020 by holding that the time-limit prescribed in Section 11B of the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e course of arguments and I find that there are contrary decisions of higher fora on this issue. I find that the decision of the Hon ble jurisdictional High Court of Judicature at Madras in the case of M/s. 3E Infotech (supra) is binding, wherein the following ratio has been laid down: 12. Further, the claim of the respondent in refusing to return the amount would go against the mandate of Article 265 of the Constitution of India, which provides that no tax shall be levied or collected except by authority of law. 13. On an analysis of the precedents cited above, we are of the opinion, that when service tax is paid by mistake a claim for refund cannot be barred by limitation, merely because the period of limitation under Section 11 ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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