ORDER
S.K. Bhatnagar, Vice President
1. This is a Department’s appeal against the order of Commissioner (Appeals), New Delhi dated 23-4-1996.
2. Learned Departmental Representative stated that the respondents were engaged in the manufacture of cement based paints and water proofing compounds. It was the Department’s contention that they had wrongly availed the credit in question on the strength of the gate passes issued in favour of their Head Office at Bombay. The Commissioner (Appeals) had, however, allowed the benefit on the basis of an endorsed gate pass treating the later as a valid document although it has not been so prescribed by the Board under Rule 57H (as amended) and in terms of Notification No. 16/94, dated 30-3-1994, such gate pass is valid only if issued prior to 1-4-1994 whereas in the present case, it has been issued on 19-12-1994. The learned Commissioner has erred in relying on the orders of the Tribunal in the cases of Siyaram Platex (P) Ltd. v. CCE, Jaipur reported in 1994 (73) E.L.T. 915 (Tribunal) and Larsen & Toubro Ltd. v. CCE, Bhubaneswar reported in 1994 (72) E.L.T. 948 (Tribunal).
3. It was his contention that learned Commissioner has also been inconsistent in her orders and passed this one at variance of her own previous orders.
4. Learned Counsel drew attention towards the cross objection and Order-in-Appeal and submitted that Notification No. 16/94 has a Table annexed to it in which at Sl. No. 10, one of the eligible document shown is endorsed gate passes/subsidiary gate passes/certificates and at Sl. No. 12, there is another entry referring to Rule 52A as it stood before 1-4-1994 which covers gate passes issued under Rule 52A as it stood before 1-4-1994.
5. In the present case, the gate passes were issued prior to 1-4-1994 but only endorsed after this date and it has already been settled by the Tribunal’s order in the case of Moosa Haji Patrawala Pvt. Ltd. v. CCE, Bombay-I reported in 1996 (83) E.L.T. 620 (Tribunal) (which has since been followed in other cases) that such gate passes which were issued prior to 1-4-1994 but endorsed after the said date but in respect of which the credit had been taken prior to 30-6-1994 purpose of Modvat and in this case, the Modvat credit was taken on 28-6-1994 on the basis of endorsed gate passes. That apart, the learned Commissioner has rightly relied upon the Tribunal’s order in the cases of Siyaram Platex and Larsen & Toubro Ltd. (supra) as the respondents’ company is a multi-unit company with a manufacturing unit at Gotan, Madras and Bombay and is having the registered office at Bombay. The order for the purchase of the goods was placed by Bombay Head Office for their Bombay factory but, since the requirement of Gotan factory was more urgent, the entire consignment in original packing was transferred to Gotan. The Bombay office recorded a certificate that no Modvat credit has been taken by them in respect of the goods covered by the same gate pass.
6. I have considered the above submissions. I observe that the submissions of the learned Counsel have a lot of force and the learned Commissioner has rightly appreciated the facts and correctly relied upon the Tribunal’s aforesaid orders cited by her. In the case of Larsen & Toubro Ltd. (supra), the Tribunal has held that in case of inputs received and consumed in the factory, the credit is not disallowable just because the bill of entry or the gate pass shows company’s office address.
7. Further, it has also been held in that order that in the case of multiunit companies, the purchase orders placed on foreign/indigenous suppliers either directly by user factory or through port office of the company and the duty paying documents showing address of other unit of same manufacturer were valid and there was no need for the office of the company to endorse documents in favour of the user factory.
8. In this case also, the GP 1s were in the name of the respondents; and that they were issued in the name of their Bombay office was, by itself, not sufficient to disallow the credit.
9. Therefore, the learned Commissioner has rightly applied the ratio of the aforesaid judgment to the present case and has further rightly relied upon the case of Siyaram Platex (P) Ltd. (supra).
10. In view of the above position, the Department’s appeal is rejected and the cross objection is disposed of accordingly as already announced in the open Court.