Hon’ble Dr. Satish Chandra, J.—The present appeals are filed by the appellant/assessee against the order dated 8.9.2009 in Excise Appeal No. 3407 of 2004 & 3408 of 2004 as well as the order dated 15.2.2010 passed in applications No. 206 & 207/2009 passed by Custom, Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal, New Delhi.

2.The brief facts of the case are that the appellant/assessee is a private limited company and during the assessment year under consideration, was engaged in the manufacturing of ordinary Portland Cement, which was subject to Central Excise Act, 1985. The Department received an anonymous complainant indicating therein that during the period 9.2.1993 to 27.9.1995 about 3839.350 MT, ordinary Portland cement was illegally sold which involved central excise duty amounting to Rs. 7,20,154/-, by using parallel documents like GPIs, invoices, challans, Bills, cash memo and GRs, etc.

3. After receiving the anonymous complainant along-with copy of the said documents, Department has issued notice to the appellants and finally confirmed the demand to the tune of Rs. 7,20,154/- under the erstwhile Rule 9(2) of the Central Excise Rules, 1944 read with the proviso to sub section (1) of Section 11-A of the Central Excise Act and also imposed penalty to the tune of Rs. 3,50,000/- under Rules 9(2) and 173Q as the same stood at the relevant time read with Rule 209 of the Central Excise Act, 1944 also imposed penalty of Rs. 7,20,154/- in terms of Section 11-A-C of the said Act. Besides penalty to the tune of Rs. 3,65,000/- under Rule 209 of the Central Excise Rules, penalty was also imposed against each of the Directors namely Shri Ajit Kumar, Shri Jagmohan Goel and Smt. Kamlesh Tayal. Being aggrieved, the respondents preferred appeal before the Commissioner (Appeals) which were allowed vide order dated 29.3.2004. Not being satisfied the Department has filed appeals before the Tribunal, who ex parte has allowed the appeals filed by the Department. The recall applications were also rejected by the Tribunal. Being aggrieved the appellants-assessee have filed the present appeals.

4. The first appeal pertaining to quantum and remaining appeals are related the penalties levied against each Director/company.

5. With this background, heard Sri Ashok Kumar and Sri Uma Nath Pandey, learned counsel for appellant in Central Excise Appeal Nos. 228 of 2010 and 126 (defective) of 2010; and Sri Krishna Agarwal the learned counsel for the appellant in Central Excise Appeal Nos. 528 of 2010 and 529 of 2010. Sri R. C. Shukla, learned counsel for the department. All the appeals are interconnected, so the same are disposed of by this consolidated order for the sake of convenience.

6. Shri Ashok Kumar, learned counsel for the assessee submits that there are three Directors in the company namely Sri Ajit Kumar, Shri Jagmohan Goel and Smt. Kamlesh Tayal. Earlier Sri Anil Kumar was also a Director, who was removed by the Board of Directors of the company, as he had hatched conspiracy against other Directors. Sri Anil Kumar was removed because he also has misappropriated funds with the help of Accountant Sri Vasts, who was also removed from service. In revenge, they have prepared the forged documents and made false complainant against the appellants. Parallel documents like GPIs, invoices, challans, Bills, cash memo and GRs, etc. were prepared by these persons to support anonymous complaint. On specific inquiry by the Bench, he accepts that the name of the informant was never disclosed by the Department.

7. He further submits Sri Ajit Kumar, one of the Director of the company was summoned by the Department and his statement was recorded where it was mentioned that his signature was forged on the said parallel documents. The documents have not been issued by his unit and the same have been prepared unauthorizedly and illegally by Sri Anil Kumar former Director of the company. He submits that no sale was made out side the books and the complaint was ent