The main legal point established in the judgment is that the demand notice issued by the assessing authority was upheld, and the petitioner was not required to be served with a show cause notice before the demand was raised, as any infraction of principles of natural justice in the given case and the demand notice being upheld by the Apex Court made it clear that the issuance of a show cause notice in the given facts and circumstances of the present case would be an empty formality and no useful purpose would be served.

Ajay Rastogi, J.

This batch of writ petitions since involve a common question of law and facts, with the consent of the parties are being disposed of by the present order. The facts are being noticed from WP(C) No.1523/2017.

2. The facts, in brief, which manifest from the record and relevant for the present purpose, are that the petitioner is the manufacturer/exporter/whole sale supplier of chewing tobacco/cosmetic products, etc. The Government of India announced a separate industrial policy for the north-eastern region of the country in December, 1997 which proposed to stimulate synergetic development of industries in the region by giving a cluster of incentives which included exemption from excise duties, transport subsidies, capital investment subsidies, interest subsidies, and other benefits, etc. Pursuant to the policy of Govt. of India, a number of notifications were issued by the Ministry concerned, being Excise Notifications Nos.32/99 and 33/99 dt.08.07.1999 by which diverse benefits were extended to the entrepreneurs who were running their business in the north-eastern region of the country. Under the first notification, all excisable goods were exempt from duty under the Act if the goods were produced by new industrial units which commenced their commercial production on or after 24.12.1997 and were located in defined areas specified in the annexure to the notification. The said benefit was extended for a period of ten years from the date of publication of the notification or from the date of commencement of commercial productions, whichever was later.

3. The second notification exempted goods produced in specified industries located in areas outside the growth centres and procedure was prescribed before obtaining the exemption under both the notifications that the manufacturer of goods in such industrial units would have to pay excise duty and subsequently claim refund from the Excise authorities. At a later stage, notification was issued on 31.12.1999, being Notification No.45/1999 withdrawing the excise exemption to cigarettes. However, the exemption was reintroduced on 17.01.2000 by Notification No.1/2000 and it was claimed by the entrepreneurs including the petitioner that they had set up units in a specified growth centre and claimed the benefits of Notification No.32/1999. It was allowed to the new entrepreneurs for some few months.

4. It was alleged that for some months the petitioners made payment of the excise duty and they were not refunded the amount and that is why writ petitions were filed before the Gauhati High Court and certain interim orders were passed directing the provisional refund of the excise duty by the authorities to the petitioner-entrepreneurs.

5. Pending litigation before the Gauhati High Court, S.154 of the Finance Act 2003 was enacted by Parliament. The section reads as follows:

"154.Amendment of notifications issued under Section 5-A of the Central Excise Act.—(1) The notifications of the Government of India in the Ministry of Finance(Department of Revenue) Nos.G.S.R.508(E), dated 8-7-1999 and G.S.R.509(E), dated the 8-7-1999, issued under sub-section (1) of Section 5-A of the Central Excise Act read with sub-section (3) of Section 3 of the Additional Duties of Excise (Goods of Special importance) Act, 1957(58 of 1957) and sub-section (3) of Section 3 of the Additional Duties of Excise (Textiles and Textile Articles) Act, 1978(40 of 1978), by the Central Government shall stand amended and shall be deemed to have been amended in the manner as specified against each of them in column (3) of the Ninth Schedule, on and from the corresponding date specified in column (4) of that Schedule retrospectively, and accordingly, notwithstanding anything contained in any judgment, decree or order of any court, tribunal or other authority, any action taken or anything done or purported to ha