Overview
- The bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and N. V. Anjaria allowed Adani Power’s appeal and set aside the Gujarat High Court’s 2019 judgment.
- The Court held there was no valid charging event under Section 12 of the Customs Act, with Section 30 of the SEZ Act providing only parity on rates and Section 25 not authorizing a new levy.
- Executive notifications in 2010 and 2012 were found to merely change rates and could not cure the absence of statutory authority.
- The jurisdictional Commissioner of Customs was directed to verify claims and refund duties collected between September 2010 and February 2016 within eight weeks, with authorities warned against hyper-technical objections.
- Reinforcing judicial discipline, the Court said a coordinate bench must follow the 2015 Gujarat High Court ruling or refer doubts to a larger bench rather than narrow its scope.