At the center of the controversy, in three writ petitions, namely, WP(C) 591/2008, WP(C) 1048/2008 and WP(C) 2814/2008, lies the controversy with regard to the cor­rect interpretation of the three notifications, namely, NotificationNo.69/2003-CE, dated 25.08.2003, Notification No.08/2004-CE, dated 21.01.2004, and Notification No.28/2004-CE, dated 09.07.2004, issued by Gov­ernment of India, Ministry of Finance (De­partment of Revenue), New Delhi, granting exemption from payment of excise duty and additional duty of excise in exercise of pow­ers under Sub-Section (1) of Section 5A of the Central Excise Act, 1944, read with Sec­tion 3(3) of Additional Duty of Excise (Goods of Special Importance) Act, 1957, and Sub-Section (13 6) of Section 3 of the Finance Act, 2001.

2. Having arisen out of the same Notifica­tions, which embody the schemes of exemp­tion from payment of excise duty and, being inextricably linked with each other, all the three writ petitions, which include the present one, namely, WP(C) No. 591 of 2008, have been heard together on the request made by the learned counsel for the parties concerned. For the sake of clarity and precision and, also to avoid repetition of same facts in each case, all the three writ petitions aforementioned are being disposed of by this common judgment and order.

3. The facts, which are common in all the three writ petitions, may, in brief, be set out asunder:

(i) Pursuant to a policy decision, taken by the Government of India, in Decem­ber, 1997, two Notifications, bearing Nos. 32/99-CE and 33/99-CE, both dated 08.07.1999, were issued by the Central Government. Under these two notifica­tions, the Government exempted certain goods, manufactured in the specified ar­eas, in the North Eastern Region of India, from, inter alia, payment of excise duty or additional duty of excise, which were, oth­erwise, leviable on these goods.

(ii) Both these Notifications, dated 08.07.1999, were conditional in nature in- asmuch as exemptions were made avail­able to only those manufacturing units, which having been established after 24.12.1997, manufactured any of the goods, mentioned in the 1st and 2nd Schedules to the Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985, and also those goods, which were specified in the Schedule to the Notifica­tions. Yet another condition, necessary for enabling a manufacturer to receive exemp­tion, from payment of excise duty or ad­ditional duty of excise, was that the manu­facturing unit must be located in any of the seven North Eastern States, namely, the States of Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh.

(iii) By Notification No. 45/99-CE, dated 31.12.1999, the Central Govern­ment amended its earlier said two Notifi­cations, both dated 08.07.1999, and ex­cluded all tobacco related products, in­cluding pan masala, from the purview of exemption from payment of excise duty, or additional duty of excise. By Notifica­tion, dated 17.01.2000, the Central Gov­ernment restored the exemptions, but, later on, the exemptions, so granted, were, once again, withdrawn by the Central Gov-ernment by Notifications, dated 22-01.2000 and 01.03.2001. Thereaf­ter, the Parliament enacted Section 154 of the Evidence Act, 2003, (sic) stipulat­ing therein that the Central Government has the power to amend the two Notifications, dated 08.07.1999, aforementioned with retrospective effect. What it signified was that the Central Government became em­powered to recover the money, already refunded to the manufacturers, in terms of its schemes of exemption as had been embodied in its earlier two Notification Nos. 32/99-CE and 33/99-CE, both dated 08.07.1999.

(iv) Though the exemptions, granted under the said two notifications, dated 08.07.1999, were, at some stages, as in­dicated above, withdrawn, the exemp­tions, which had been earlier withdrawn, were, once again, restored, in respect of certain excisable goods including pan masala, by Notification No. 69/2003 CE, dated 25.