expansion. It was claimed by the assessee/appellant in their application seeking refund that the installed capacity had increased by 37% on 02.07.1999. Since the claim for refund of Central Excise duty paid was submitted after about 9(nine) years from the date of increased capacity, a show cause notice was issued vide show cause notice No. V (18)23/DC/REF/07-08/3501 dated 29.09.2008 by the jurisdictional Assessing Officer. The appellant replied to the show cause notice by submitting photocopies of the relevant documents and requested for submission of the original at the time of the hearing. At the time of hearing the matter, although two orders of the Commissioner (appeals) were produced, however, the original copies of the relevant document were produced only on 16.12.2009 on the date of personal hearing. However, in spite of repeated requests, the assessee could not produce any documents in support of their claims that they had informed the Range Officer in 2001 about the expansion undertaken by the Assessee. In view of the above, the claim for refund was rejected as being time barred as the same was not filed within a reasonable time. Thereafter, the appellant/assessee filed an appeal before the Commissioner, Customs and Central Excise Appeal, Guwahati. The Appellate Authority answered the appeal in favour of the appellant by holding that the appellant fulfilled all the conditions including filing of the documents as per the trade notice and, therefore, is entitled to the benefit in question. It was also held that the notification in question as well as the law does not prescribe any time limit for claiming the benefit in question other than fulfill the condition.
