Judgment:
1. This appeal has been preferred by the appellants against the impugned order dated 13.10.2000 passed by the Commissioner. The issue in this appeal relates to the redetermination of the annual production capacity of the unit of the appellants who are operating an hot steel re-rolling mill and manufacturing hot re-rolled products of non-alloy steel which are chargeable to duty in terms of Section 3-A of the Central Excises Act, 1944 read with Notification No.31/97-CE(NT) dated 1.8.97, according to the annual production capacity of the unit.
2. The appellants changed the parameters of their re-rolling mill in terms of Rule 4(2) of the HRRSMACD Rules, 1997 and they also filed the revised declaration dated 11.3.99 and letter dated 17.3.2000 as required under Rule 3(1) of Hot Re-rolling Steel Mills Annual Capacity Determination Rules, 1997. They also filed Chartered Engineer's certificate dated 11.3.99 who certified the correctness of their declaration. The Commissioner also got the verification report from the Range Officer, Central Excise, Range-I, Mandi Gobindgarh and the Assistant Commissioner of Central Excise Division, Patiala, where the unit of the appellants is located. He accepted the revised declaration and other documents as submitted by the appellants but still determined the annual capacity of production as 7540.195 MT per annum w.e.f.
11.3.990 as that was the production of the appellants of the year 1996-97.
3. The learned counsel for the appellants has contended that after having accepted the revised declaration and other documents submitted by the appellants wherein they specified the change in the parameters of their re-rolling mills, the Commissioner could not redetermine the capacity by taking into consideration the production of the year 1996-97. He has referred in support of his contention, the decision of the Larger Bench of the Tribunal in Sawanmal Shibumal Steel Rolling Mills Vs. CCE Chandigarh-I 2001 (127) ELT 46(Tri.-LB).
4. On the other hand, the learned JDR has only reiterated the correctness of the impugned order of the Commissioner.
5. We have gone through the record and in our view the impugned order of the Commissioner cannot be sustained on the face of it. The bare perusal of the order shows that the Commissioner accepted the revised capacity of the unit as declared by the appellants in their revised declaration dated 11.3.99 which was also certified by the Chartered Engineer and corroborated by the report of Range Officer and the Assistant Commissioner. That being so, the Commissioner could not legally determine the capacity on the basis of the past performance of the year 1996-97. He has not recorded any reasons in the impugned order while fixing the annual capacity of the production of the appellants' unit as 7540.195 MT per annum. In our view, the matter deserves to be re-examined at his ends in the light of the ratio of the law laid by the larger Bench in Sawanmal Shibumal Steel Rolling Mills Vs. CCE, Chandigarh-I (supra). The learned JDR has also agreed to this.
6. Consequently, the impugned order of the Commissioner is set aside and the matter is sent back to the Commissioner for fresh decision after taking into consideration all the facts and circumstances and the ratio of the law laid down in Sawanmal Shibumal Steel Rolling Mills Vs.
CCE Chandigarh-I (supra).
7. The appeal of the appellants accordingly stands allowed by way of remand.