Held - it is evident that the appellant fulfilled the criterias of eligibility to claim refund of the service tax paid on input services in terms of the Notification No 12/2013-ST. Infact it is not the case of the revenue that the appellant is not eligible to make such claims. Their only objection is to the claim being filed beyond the period of one year as per the notification. We are of the considered opinion that once the appellant is found to be eligible to claim the refund, the substantive conditions are complied with and the condition of time limit for making the claim under the notification being only a procedural requirement, needs to be construed liberally. Considering the beneficial object of establishing the SEZ tax free, without any burden of duties, the procedural lapse, if any, cannot be the basis to deny the refund to the appellant. The exemption is intended to be absolute is further evident from para 3 (II) of the Notification which provides for ab-initio exemption. This strengthens our conclusion that the SEZ Act and the Rules read with the notification is intended to be a beneficial policy for the SEZ , therefore has to be construed liberally.From what has been observed by the adjudicating authority is that for the period January to March 2017, service tax was paid prior to 01.10.2016 and the refund claim was filed on 10.10.2017 and therefore it is beyond the period of one year. Even, if one calculates the actual delay the same appears to be somewhere around 10 days or so. Similarly, for the period April to June, 2016 service tax was paid prior to 01.03.2017 and refund claim was filed on 28.03.2018. In both the cases, the delay is neither exorbitant nor unreasonable which on the face of it cannot be condoned. We are, therefore of the view that the adjudicating authority should have considered the issue of condonation of delay taking a wider and liberal approach. It is the well established principle that the eligibility criteria laid down in an exemption notification are required to be construed strictly, however once it is found that the applicant satisfies the same, the exemption notification should be construed liberally.In the facts of the present we allow the refund claims of the appellant. The impugned order is, accordingly, set aside and appeal stands allowed.

It is apparent from the record that the petitioner made payment in a wrong head and there is no dispute regarding the same. However, his claim for refund has been rejected by the authority on the ground of limitation vide order dated 23.4.2020 i.e. Annexure-7 to the writ petition.In the meantime, Circular bearing No. 162/18/2021-GST dated 25.9.2021 was issued by the CBIC on the subject/clarification in respect to refund of tax specified in Section 77(i) of the CGST Act and Section 19(i) of the IGST Act. Earlier, vide Notification No. 35/2001-Central Tax dated 24.9.2021, Sub-Rule (1A) of Rule 89 of CGST Rules 2017 has been inserted.Thus the relevant CBIEC had extended a benevolent provision for extension of limitation of refund in case of wrong deposit. In that view of the matter, we are inclined to allow this petition and dispose of the writ petition by quashing Annexure-7 to the writ petition. We further give liberty to the petitioner to file an application within a period of thirty days hence for refund of excess CGST paid to the respondent, which shall be considered in light of the latest circular within a period of thirty days, thereafter.With the aforesaid observation and direction, this petition stands allowed.

Held - Any claim filed thereafter along with the shipping bills is a fresh claim and the appellant on remand should have filed the claim with the stipulated time and instead files after 2 years claiming that there is no time. The laws and the rules that specifically mention the due dates cannot be ignored.The basis for filing a refund claim under Rule 5 is the shipping bill, whereas the appellant filed the complete refund claim along with the shipping bills only on 14.10.2019 i.e., after two years from the date of order of the Commissioner (A) is clearly time barred and hence, the claims rejected on time bar by the authorities is justified.