- (1.) The appellant, a Public Limited Company, has preferred these appeals against the decision of the High Court dismissing its writ petitions by which the appellant sought to question the decision of the Revenue levying excise duty under Rule 17(4) of the Central Excise and Salt Rules 1944. The said show cause notice was issued under Rule 10, as in force prior to 6th August, 1977 which inter alia provided that "when duties or charges have been short-levied through inadvertence, error, collusion or misconstruction on the part of an officer, or through mis-statement as to the quantity, description or value of such goods on the part of the owner, or when any such duty or charge, after having been levied, has been owing to any such cause, erroneously refunded, the proper officer may, within three months from the date on which the duty or charge was paid or adjusted in the owner's account-current, if any, or from the date of making the refund, serve a notice on the person from who such deficiency in duty or charges is or are recoverable requiring him to show cause to the Assistant Collector of Central Excise why he should not pay the amount specified in the notice."
(2.) Under Rule 173 J, in the case of self-removal, the time limit for recovery of short levy or refund of excess levy, etc., was fixed as one year instead of three months as stated in Rule 10.
(3.) There is no doubt that in the instant case the show cause notice was issued within time. Although, the show cause notice was for a longer time it was confined to one year only and therefore, instead of the amount of Rs. 4,37,074.60 demanded in the show cause notice, the amount was reduced to Rs. 47,173.37.;