ORDER :

1. The instant writ petition has been preferred by the petitioner M/s. Paras Marble for challenging the order (Annexure-10) dated 16.10.2020 passed by Deputy Commissioner of Customs (Refunds-II) and to direct the respondent No.3 to decide the petitioner’s refund application afresh by treating it to be within limitation.

2. Brief facts relevant and essential for disposal of the writ petition are noted hereinbelow:-

3. The petitioner herein being a proprietory firm, had imported capital goods without payment of duty against EPCG licenece No.1330000397 dated 28.11.2003 for which a bank guarantee to the tune of Rs.4,84,000/-was submitted in favour of the Commissioner of Customs, Chennai. The bank guarantee was enforced by the Customs Department in the year 2011. The petitioner fulfilled the export obligation against the EPCG licence whereupon, the office of the Joint Director General of Foreign Trade, Jaipur issued an Export Obligation Discharge Certificate (‘EODC’) dated 10.10.2018 in favour of the petitioner. As per Section 26 of the Customs Act, 1962, a registered dealer is entitled to seek refund of the security amount once the EODC is issued and the time limit for filing the refund application is six months from the date of clearance of goods which as per the petitioner is 10.10.2018 in the case at hand.

4. Having acquired the EODC, the petitioner applied for the refund of the amount of the bank guarantee vide letter dated 24.11.2018. However, it seems that the application was inadvertently addressed to the Commissioner, Customs and should have been filed before the Assistant/Deputy Commissioner of Customs which is the proper officer to grant refunds under Section 27 of the Customs Act.

5. A letter dated 30.04.2019 was issued from the office of the Commissioner Customs and the petitioner was informed to approach the Assistant Commissioner (Refunds), Refund Section, Commissionerate-IV, Customs House, Chennai for claiming the refund. Thereupon, the petitioner submitted a fresh refund application along with all relevant documents vide letter dated 20.05.2019 to the Assistant Commissioner (Refunds). The petitioner has claimed that pursuant to submission of the said application to the proper officer, various reminders were issued but the refund application of the petitioner was not considered.

6. A letter dated 03.08.2020 was issued by the Assistant Commissioner informing the petitioner that its refund application could not be processed because the same had not been filed in the prescribed format and accordingly the application was being returned to the petitioner. The petitioner filed a fresh application to the Assistant Commissioner (Refunds) in the prescribed form No.102 as per the Custom Refund Application (Form) Regulations, 1995 on 04.09.2020. The Refund Authority rejected the petitioner’s refund claim by order (Annexure-10) dated 16.10.2020 observing that the same was time-barred whereupon, the petitioner has approached this Court through this writ petition for assailing the impugned order dated 16.10.2020 and to direct the respondents to treat the petitioner’s application for refund to be within limitation and to decide the same as per law.

7. A brief reply has been filed by the respondents wherein, a submission is made that the application dated 04.09.2020 submitted by the petitioner was received in the Office of the respondent after a delay of five months and thus, the same was rightly rejected as being time-barred.

8. Having considered the submissions advanced by Shri Jaideep Singh Saluja, learned counsel representing the petitioner, Shri Mukesh Rajpurohit, learned ASG and Shri Rajvendra Saraswat, learned counsel representing the respondents, we are of the firm view that the Respondent No.3 Refund authority acted in an absolutely hyper-technical, unjustified and arbitrary manner while rejecting the application submitted by the petitioner on the ground of delay.

9. The bank guarantee submitted by the petitioner as a secur