Presentation of refund claim :
Any person, who deems himself entitled to a refund of any duties of excise or other dues, or has been informed by the department that a refund is due to him shall present a claim in proper Form, along with all the relevant documents supporting his claim and also the copies of documents/records supporting his declaration that he has not passed on the duty incidence.
The claim will be filed with the Deputy/Assistant Commissioner of Central Excise with a copy to the Range Officer.
The claim shall be presented in duplicate and shall be duly signed by the claimant or by a duly authorised person on his behalf and shall be pre-receipted (with revenue stamp on original copy, where necessary).
It may not be possible to scrutinise the claim without the accompanying documents and de cide about its admissibility. If the claim is filed without requisite documents, it may lead to delay in sanction of the refund. Moreover, the claimant of refund is entitled for interest in case refund is not given within three months of the filing of claim. Incomplete claim will not be in the interest of the Department. Consequently, submission of refund claim without supporting documents will not be allowed. Even if post or similar mode files the same, the claim should be rejected or returned with Query Memo (depending upon the nature/importance of document not filed). The claim shall be taken as filed only when all relevant documents are available. In case of non – availability of any document due to reasons for which the Central Excise or Customs Department is solely accountable, the claim may be admitted that the claimant is not in disadvantageous position with respect to limitation period.
Subsequent to filing of the application, the Range Officer will complete the scrutiny of the papers within 2 weeks from the date of receipt of the claim in the Range Office and send a report to their scrutiny to the Divisional Deputy/Assistant Commissioner of Central Excise.
The Divisional Office will scrutinise the claim, in consultation with Range, and check that the refund application is complete and is covered by all the requisite documents. This should be done, as far as possible, the moment refund claim is received and in case of any deficiency, the same should be pointed out to the applicant with a copy to the Range Officer within 15 days of receipt.
In the Divisional Offices, final processing of refund claims after the receipt of Range Officer’s report should be completed including the verification of the fact whether the assessee has passed on the duty incidence to their buyer (in cases where the refund claim is filed by a manufacturer or owner of warehoused goods). The types of cases to which this provision will not be attracted are already specified in section 11B itself. Where the duty incidence has been passed on, the duty refund, if otherwise admissible, will be ordered in file, but will also be ordered to be credited to the Consumer Welfare Fund. The burden of proving that the duty incidence has not been passed on, is on the claimant and the latter may be required to submit sufficient documentary proof for this purpose. It is clarified that the question of unjust enrichment has to be looked into case by case. There cannot be a general instruction indicating the documents and /or record, which the claimant should produce as a proof that he has not passed on the duty incidence to any other person.
Claim for refund of less than ` 100 shall not be entertained in respect of all excisable commodities.