Judgment:
1. The Revenue has filed this application claiming that certain questions of law have arisen from Final Order No. S/1197-1198/98-NB(S) dated 26.11.98 passed by the Tribunal in Appeal Nos.
E/2360-2361/98-NB(SM).
2. On careful examination of the facts of the case, I note that modvat credits taken by the respondents on inputs and capital goods to the tune of Rs.15 lakhs were denied by the adjudicating authority on the ground that the duty-paying documents on the strength of which the credits wee taken did not contain complete particulars in terms of Notification No. 33/94-CE(NT) dated 4.7.94 and on certain other grounds. In the appeal filed by the assessees against the order of the adjudicating authority, the Commissioner (Appeals) remanded the matter to the lower authority for re-consideration of the assessee's claim on the basis of their explanation with regard to the particulars furnished in the invoices. Against the remand order of the Commissioner (Appeals), the Revenue filed the aforesaid appeal Nos.
E/2360-2361/98-NB. The Tribunal, by the aforesaid Final Order dated 26.11.98 upheld the remand order of the Commissioner (Appeals), after finding that there was no justification for interfering with the impugned order.
4. ld. JDR Sh. K. Panchatcharan, has reiterated the submissions contained in the present application. He submits that the questions of law as formulated in the application have arisen from the Final Order dated 26.11.98 of the Tribunal and the same require to be referred to High Court. Ld. Advocate, Sh Y.K. Kumar, for the respondents, submits that in passing the final order, the Tribunal did not interfere with the order of the Commissioner (Appeals) and, therefore, did not record any finding of facts or of law over the dispute involved in the appeals. Ld. Counsel argues that no question of law can arise from such Final Order of the Tribunal. He, therefore, prays for rejecting the present application.
5. I have carefully considered the rival submissions. The questions of law formulated by the applicants are as under :- (i) Whether the deficient invoices which do not contain the certain details as prescribed by CBEC or the Commissioner of Central Excise were valid documents under Rule 57GG(4) (ii) Whether the deficient invoices in which prescribed particulars got incorporated later on are valid documents under Rule 57GG(4).
5. On a careful examination of the Final Order of the Tribunal, I do not find that any such question of law as aforesaid has arisen from the Final Order inasmuch as, by the said Final Order, the Tribunal was only leaving the factual dispute to the adjudicating authority to which the matter had been remanded by the Commissioner (Appeals). No factual dispute was settled by the Tribunal as the final fact-finding body in the matter. It is only when the Tribunal settles any disputed questions of facts that any question of law can arise. This is not the case here.
I, therefore, reject this application.