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Judgment
H. Suresh, J.—The question involved in this petition is directly covered by two judgments; one of the Supreme Court being the case of Khandelwal Metal and Engineering Works and Another Vs. Union of India (UOI) and Others, , and the other being the judgment delivered by Bharucha, J. on March 3, 1987 in Writ Petition No. 2755 of 1982 [1988] 16 ECC 157. Following the observations of the Supreme Court the learned Judge has dismissed the said writ petition.
Briefly, the question was that the petitioners were not liable to pay an additional duty as contemplated u/s 3 of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975, whereby any article which is imported into India shall, in addition, be liable to a duty equal to the excise duty for the time being leviable on a like article if produced or manufactured in India and if such excise duty on a like article is leviable at any percentage of its value, the additional duty to which the imported article shall be so liable, shall be calculated at that percentage of the value of the imported article. It is the contention of the petitioners that they imported lead scrap, the scrap not being a manufactured item, no excise duty would be leviable and, therefore, the petitioners cannot be asked to pay additional duty as contemplated by Section 3 of the said Act. This contention has been expressly negatived by the Supreme Court and, therefore, the petitioners contention in that behalf cannot be sustained.
It appears that the petitioners had paid various amounts by way of additional duty and the dates of payments and the amounts have been set out at Ex. H to the petition and the petitioners had asked for refund of all these items. The Assistant Collector of Customs by his letter dated May 7, 1981 had, in respect of two of such applications, rejected the claim of refund on the ground that the claim was barred by law of limitation.
Whatever that be, certainly it is not possible for the petitioners to claim any refund inasmuch as the main contention as set out above, has been expressly negatived by the Supreme Court.
Hence this petition does not survive. I pass the following order:
This petition is dismissed. Rule discharged. However, in the circumstances of the case there would be no order as to costs.