' This appeal is directed against the Order-in-Original No,110 of 2000 passed by the Addition al Collector (Adjudication) Collect orate of Sales Tax and Central Excise, Lahore, on. The 12th of April, 2000 whereby he ordered the appellant Messrs Faletti's Hotel to deposit Central Excise duty amounting to Rs,255,879 along with additional duty in terms of section 3-B of the Central Excise Act, 1944. A penalty of Rs,20,000 was also imposed for contravention of Central Excise Rules and Laws.
2. The learned counsel for the appellant contended that the impugned order could not stand for the only legal plane that the show-cause notice was issued by the Additional Collector on the report of the staff of the Directorate of Audit and Revenue Receipts, Lahore, who had examined the record of the appellant for the period from July, 1994, to October, 1995.
3. We have examined the plea of the appellant and have found it as fatal to the conduct of the proceedings by the adjudicating authority against the appellant. In support of this view, the authoritative pronouncement reported in 2010 PTD 1355 can be pressed into service wherein it was clearly held that the Directorate General of Revenue Receipts Audit was a branch of the Auditor- General of Pakistan and its officers did not even fall in the category of officers mentioned in section 2(28) of Central Excise Act, 1944. Charter of function of said Directorate given in the notification dated the 17th of December, 1990, had revealed that the President of Pakistan had required the Auditor-General of Pakistan to audit the receipt of Federal Government and not the record of private enterprises registered under the Sales Tax/Central Excise Laws. Whole the exercise conducted by the Directorate was coram non judice and cannot be held to sustain in the facts and circumstances of the case. It was clearly mentioned in the show-cause notice that the DRRA had examined the Central Excise record of the appellant which was not allowable.
4. For what has been discussed above the present appeal is accepted and the impugned order annulled.