JUDGMENT :

Akil Kureshi, J.

These petitions arise out of a similar background. They have been heard together and would be disposed of by this common judgment.

2. Material facts being similar, we may notice them as arising in D.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 18117/2019. The petitioner is a limited company and is engaged in the business of manufacture and export of Yarn. The petitioner had exported such product during the year 2013-14 and claimed duty drawback at a higher rate as per the Customs department's notifications. The petitioner also made a separate rebate claim before the Excise Department. The Assistant Commissioner of Excise issued a show cause notice dated 12.02.2014 calling upon the petitioner to explain why such rebate claim should not be rejected. His main ground for proposing rejection of the petitioner's rebate claim was that the petitioner had availed higher rate of drawback for the export which is available only when Cenvat facility has not been availed. In the present case, according to the Assistant Commissioner, the assessee had failed to establish that it satisfied the condition No.15 of the notification No.92/2012 dated 04.10.2012. He therefore proposed to deny the benefit of rebate of duty as claimed by the petitioner.

3. The petitioner filed a detailed reply to the said show cause notice under communication dated 21.02.2014 and principally contended that the petitioner had availed the benefit of credit of duty only on capital goods and not taken any credit on any of the inputs or input services used for manufacture of the export goods.

According to the petitioner, this methodology was in conformity with the said notification dated 04.10.2012 and thus the show cause notice should be dropped.

4. Not accepting the stand of the petitioner, the Assistant Commissioner passed the order dated 05.03.2014 and rejected the rebate claim of the petitioner. He was of the opinion that the petitioner had availed the drawback at higher rate by declaring that the petitioner was not availing benefit under the Cenvat credit rules, which was not a correct statement.

5. The petitioner preferred an appeal against the said order.

The appellate authority dismissed the appeal by order dated 18.09.2017. It was of the opinion that the drawback is a rebate of duty or tax chargeable on imported materials or excisable materials used as input in manufacture of export goods. Since the petitioner had already availed the drawback, the claim of the petitioner for rebate was not sustainable. Granting any such rebate claim would amount to double benefit.

6. The petitioner thereupon filed a revision petition before the Government of India. The revision petition was dismissed by an order dated 09.10.2019. The revisional authority referred to and relied upon the decision of the learned Single Judge of the Madras High Court in the case of M/s. Raghav Industries Ltd. v. Union of India and others, 2016 (334) E.L.T. 584 (Mad.) confirming the views of the excise authorities. The petitioner has thereupon filed this petition challenging the said orders.

7. In this group of petitions, the arguments have been advanced by Senior Advocates Mr. Vikas Balia and Mr. Sanjeev Johari. Their contentions were that the duty drawback and rebate claims are separate and independent benefits recognised under different statutes. The petitioner had utilized the Cenvat credit of the duty paid on capital goods for discharging its excise liabilities on purchase of raw materials which were used for manufacturing the export products. This does not amount to breach of any of the conditions for claiming the rebate and in particular condition No.15 of the notification dated 04.10.2012. They submitted that the decision of Madras High Court in the case of M/s. Raghav Industries (supra) does not laid down correct law. Heavy reliance was placed on the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of M/s Spentex Industries Ltd. v. Commissioner of Central Excise and others, (2016) 1 SCC 780, in whic