P & B PHARMACEUTICALS(P)LTD. vs COLLECTOR OF CENTRAL EXCISE — C.A. No. 3969/1995

Case Summary: P & B Pharmaceuticals (P) Ltd. v. Collector of Central Excise Decision: The Supreme Court allowed the appeal, setting aside the CEGAT's order. The Court held that the Excise authorities wrongly invoked the proviso to Section 11-A of the Central Excise Act, 1944, as there was no genuine suppression of facts by the assessee regarding its distributor being a related person—these facts were already before authorities in earlier proceedings (1985, 1988) which were dropped. Additionally, the Court ruled that the assessee was entitled to small-scale exemption as it had validly assigned the P/B logo from P&B Laboratories Ltd., and third-party use of the logo cannot disqualify exemption eligibility. Consequently, the penalty of Rs. 15,00,000 was deemed unsustainable. This case analysis is maintained by casestatus.in based on publicly available court records.