Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
Ramesh Nair

DECISION

Ramesh Nair, Member (J)

1. The brief facts of the case are that M/s. Vipul Copper Pvt. Ltd. are engaged in the manufacture of Copper Rods/Wires etc. They were availing of the benefit of Cenvat credit facility. The intelligence was gathered by DGCEI officers and necessary investigation has been initiated against the appellant. As per the allegation of the Revenue, investigation revealed that Appellant were using non-duty paid scrap for manufacture of their final products and in order to avail cenvat credit, obtaining duty paid invoices of raw material. Since the duty paid raw material as shown in the duty paying documents were not physically received in their factory for being used by them in or in relation to manufacture of finished goods, the Cenvat Credit, in such cases where inputs were actually not received and not used in the manufacture of final products and only duty paying documents were being received, was not admissible to them. Searches were carried out by the Officers at the factory premises as well as business premises of the appellant and certain documents were withdrawn for further investigation. The scrutiny of such records/documents reveal that Appellant had availed the Cenvat Credit mainly on the strength of invoices of M/s. Pranav and M/s. Omkar, the registered dealers, who have shown purchase of copper ingots from Jammu based units as well as copper ingots/wire/wire rod scrap, etc. purchased from various registered dealers from Delhi. The investigation by DGCEI revealed that such imported consignment of copper never reached the dealers of Gujarat and Daman and credit was availed by them on the strength of only bills of entry/invoices and bogus LRs were prepared while the goods were sold in or around Delhi only. It therefore, appeared that M/s. Pranav and M/s. Onkar did not receive the goods and they have issued only invoices to Appellant and other units to enable them to avail cenvat credit.

1.1. The investigation was carried out with respect to the vehicles mentioned in the input invoices used for transporting the goods from transporters/check posts/RTO. The documents recovered from M/s. Singhal Road Carriers were scrutinized and it was found that said transporter was transporting goods other than copper form New Delhi to Ahmedabad and such other goods were entered in their delivery registers recovered from their Ahmedabad branch office. On the same date and for the same truck, M/s. Singhal Road Carriers issued another LR for transportation of copper ingots/wire bars to the manufacturers of articles of copper of Gujrat, Daman or Silvassa. The vehicles actually transported other goods and hence the stamps of the checkpost of Commercial Tax department were affixed on the transport documents. The investigations were also carried out with the RTO Check posts and the information furnished by the Joint Director of Transport, Gujrat state was examined vis--vis the details of the transportation appearing in the LRs of the transporters from Delhi to Nadiad. Such sc........