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768 EXCISE LAW TIMES [ Vol. 372

the case must be pending before an adjudicating authority as on the date of Ap-
plication under Section 32E(1) of the Act and no application under Section 32E(1)
can be made unless the conditions of the Proviso clauses (a) to (d) thereof, are
complied with. Further, while the statute gives some discretion to the Bench in
respect of condition (a), there is no discretion in respect of other conditions.
Thus, the initial applications being violative of condition (d) was statuto-
rily defective and could not have been treated as an application in strict legal
sense, as the language used in the statute is that - ‘no such application shall be
made unless’. The applicants resubmitted the applications after rectifying the
defects and was received by the Commission Registry on 11-6-2019. Thus, on the
face of it, the date of application has to be reckoned as the date of receipt of the
valid application duly complying with the requirement of the law stipulated in
Section 32E(1) of the Act. Otherwise, there will be a clear violation of the lan-
guage of the law as stipulated in Section 32E(1) ibid. If the applicants’ argument
that the date of the earlier defective application be treated as the date of filing of
applications in the instant case is accepted then clearly it would be contrary to
the mandate of the law that ‘no such application shall be made unless’ . Thus, the
earlier invalid/defective application cannot be legally accepted as the application
having been made under Section 32E(1) of the Act.
6.6 In view of the above, the Bench holds that in the instant case the
date of receipt of application is that date on which valid applications complying
with the law were received, i.e., 11-6-2019. However, on the said date, the im-
pugned SCN stood adjudicated vide O-in-O, dated 20-2-2019; hence, it was no
more a ‘case’ that could be settled. The definition of ‘case’ under Section 31 of the
Act, as extracted above clearly stipulates that the proceeding has to be pending
before an adjudicating authority on the date on which an application under Sec-
tion 32E(1) of the Act is made.
ORDER
7. The Bench accordingly rejects the applications under Section 32F(1)
of the Central Excise Act, 1944 as not maintainable and cannot be allowed to be
proceeded with.
_______

2020 (372) E.L.T. 768 (Sett. Comm.)
BEFORE THE SETTLEMENT COMMISSION, CUSTOMS, CENTRAL
EXCISE, AND SERVICE TAX, MUMBAI
[ADDITIONAL BENCH]
S/Shri P.K. Dash, Vice-Chairman and P.M. Govande, Member
IN RE : HARISONS INDUSTRIES
Order No. 55/ADMISSION ORDER/CUS/AG/2019, dated 6-9-2019 in Settlement
Application No. F. No. 35/CUS/AG/2019-SC(MB)-SA[C]78/2018
Settlement of cases - Settlement application - Admissibility - Deficien-
cy in filing appeal - Failure to pay interest on accepted duty amount - Under
normal situation, non-payment of interest would have attracted bar of admis-
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