ORDER
K.K. Bhatia, Member (T)
1. The appellants filed a refund claim of Rs. 51,720/- on the ground that they had cleared Pig Iron and C.I. Skull to three different buyers on payment of duty under Rule 47F(i)(ii) at the rates higher than the purchase value and thus paid excess duty. This claim is made for the excess duty paid during the period from 12-11-95 to 6-1-96. The Assistant Commissioner of Central Excise, Division-II, Bhopal, however, passed an order dated 3-7-99 on the refund claim of the party in which he has observed that as per Section 12B, every person who has paid the duty of excise on any goods shall, unless the contrary is proved by him, be deemed to have passed on the full incidences of such duty to the buyer of such goods. Further, in view of Section 11B(1), any person claiming refund of any duty of excise may make an application, accompanied by documentary or other evidences to establish that the amount of duty in relation to which the refund is claimed was collected from or paid by him and the incidence of such duty had not been passed on by him to any other parson. The Assistant Commissioner in his order has observed that the claim of refund filed by the party is accompanied by the documents which clearly show that the claimant charged and recovered the duty component from their buyers as revealed from the outgoing invoices issued by the claimant at the time of clearance of their excisable goods; that the claimant fully realised the duty component which is in turn was passed on to its said buyers. He has observed that since the appellants have failed to establish that the incidence of such duty has not been passed on by him to buyers so the amount of duty of excise shall instead of being paid to the applicant, be credited to the Consumer Welfare Fund constituted under Section 12C of Central Excise Act, 1944. Having regard to these facts, therefore, the Assistant Commissioner sanctioned the refund of Rs. 51,720/- and ordered this amount to be credited to Consumer Welfare Fund constituted under Sec tion 12C.
2. The party filed an appeal but the same is rejected by the Commis-
sioner (Appeals), Bhopal, vide his order dated 21-8-2001.
3. This appeal is against the impugned order of the Commissioner (Appeals). I have heard Shri M.P. Devnath, Advocates for the appellants and Shri S.C. Pushkarna, JDR, for the respondents. The ld. Counsel for the Appellants does not dispute the facts as enumerated above that the appellants had charged and recovered the duty component from the buyers as revealed from the outgoing invoices issued by them at the time of clearance of the excisable goods and that they fully realised the duty component and it was passed on their buyers at the time of sale of their goods. It is, however, contended that they issued credit notes to their buyers for the impugned amount. Without recording any comments on the legal position of such claim, even on affording sufficient time to the appellants at this stage, they have not able to produce any evidence that any credit notes were issued to the buyers equivalent to the amount of refund claimed by them. Another argument advanced by the ld. Counsel for the appellants is that the buyers had taken the Modvat credit of duty paid on the impugned goods but the same was subsequently reversed. First of all, there is no evidence of the reversal of such Modvat credit and even if they have done so, this does not make the claim of the appellants any better. They have for all intents and purposes passed on the element of duty to the buyers. Their this contention is therefore misplaced. This appeal has no merits and the same is accordingly rejected.