ORDER

Per Moheb Ali M. :

This is a Revenue's appeal against the order of Commissioner (A) Customs Mumbai. In the impugned order the Commissioner held that the demand for Rs. 74,93,258/- is time barred.

2. Briefly the facts as brought out in the appeal memorandum are as follows:-

"A Contract of the Respondent was registered in the Contract Cell under Project Import Regulations, 1986, on 8.11.1993. On completion of imports, the importer submitted a Reconciliation Statement and accordingly project contract was finalized. At the time of registration, 2% Revenue Deposit was ordered to be recovered on account of importer's agreement with foreign supplier for payment of Royalty, Licence know-how fees; which was accepted by the importer (Respondent). However in respect of 3Bs/E, 2% revenue deposit was inadvertently not recovered, therefore, the same was proposed to be recovered from the respondent, who in turn requested to adjust the same from the amount of Rs. 50,00,000/- paid by them as Cash Security Deposit. Accordingly the duty of Rs. 7,28,733/- was adjusted and credited to Revenue vide Cash Challan No. 2133 dt. 12.02.2001, under Section 18 (2) of Customs Act, 1962".

3. The Revenues' conten