Remember the famous Cadbury punchline “Everyone’s a Fruit and Nut case.” There are, however, few in the tax department who refused to fall in line and have raised a demand of over Rs 570 crore against confectionery giant Cadbury India Ltd for allegedly evading excise duty by fraudulently taking exemption for one of its ‘ghost’ production units in Himachal Pradesh.
The Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI) had in 2011 initiated a probe against the company for allegedly misusing ‘area-based exemption’ for its new unit in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, even before it came into existence, official sources said. After completion of its investigation, the DGCEI had slapped a show-cause notice to the firm demanding about Rs 250 crore against excise duty evasion, they said.
The demand was contested and the central excise office of Chandigarh had late last month issued an assessment-cum-demand notice to Cadbury India Ltd (now Mondelez India Foods Private Limited) upholding the demands raised by the DGCEI.