ORDER
Jyoti Balasundaram, Member (J)
1. For reasons recorded below, we waived the pre-deposit of duty and penalty in both cases and took up the hearing of the appeals on merits, with the consent of both sides. E/ 5365/92 arises out of the order dated 23-9-1992 of the Collector of Central Excise, Jaipur confirming a demand of Rs. 1,49,331.13 on 12,938.46 sq. mts. of marble tiles manufactured and cleared during Aug. to Oct. 1991 by the appellants without payment of excise duty, as brought out from differences between the statutory records and private records. Penalty of Rs. 10,000/- has also been imposed upon the appellants. E/5369/92 has been preferred against the order dated 15-9-1992 of the same adjudicating authority, confirming a demand of Rs. 5,047/- on 4270.656 sq. mts. of marble tiles found in excess and not entered by the appellants in the R.G. 1 Register and imposing a penalty of Rs. 10,000/-.
2. The grievance of the appellants in both cases is that the orders are non-speaking, and have been passed without considering any of their submissions relating to maintenance of private registers for sorting of tiles and not regarding production and despatch of marble tiles and there is no discussion on the submission that the seized tiles had not reached the RG 1 Stage and therefore, were, not required to be entered in the RG 1 Register.
3. We have heard both sides and perused both the impugned orders. We see substance in the contention of the ld. Advocate that the orders suffer from total non-application of mind. Though the adjudicating authority has set out the contents of the replies to the show-cause notices, we find that he has not discussed any of the contents thereof and has summarily confirmed the demands. We therefore, set aside the impugned orders and remand the matters to the adjudicating authority for de novo adjudication in accordance with law.
4. The appeals are thus allowed by way of remand.
5. We are constrained to observe that we are frequently coming across orders passed by this particular officer showing total lack of application of mind resulting in unnecessary work for the Tribunal and for the Collectorate to whom the matters are remanded for fresh consideration and in addition resulting in likely harassment to assessees.