[Civil Appeal No. 3380 of 2010]. [Civil Appeal No. 3381 of 2010]. The present appeals, by special leave, have been preferred against the judgment and order dated 24th June, 2009 passed by the Division Bench of the High Court of Gauhati in Writ Appeal No. 435 of 2006 and other connected appeals whereby it has affirmed the common judgment and order dated 21.09.2006 passed by the learned Single Judge in a batch of writ petitions. For the sake of clarity and convenience we shall advert to the facts in Civil Appeal No. 3380 of 2010 and at the relevant time we shall refer to quantum involved in other appeals. The facts, in a nutshell, are that with a view to provide necessary impetus to the development of industries in the north-eastern region a new Industrial Policy Resolution was notified by the Government of India on 24.12.1997. In pursuance of the said policy, a Notification was issued on 8.7.1999 and thereafter further Notifications were issued on 29.06.2001 and 23.12.2002. Pursuant to the said Notifications, certain benefits were availed of by the assessees. At that juncture, The Finance Act, 2003 (for brevity "the Act") was brought into force and by virtue of Section 153 of the Act certain Notifications were amended with retrospective effect from 08.07.1999, i.e. the date of original Notification which we have mentioned hereinabove. After the amendment came into force, the Assistant Commissioner, Central Excise, Jorhat referred to the amendment and the notifications and eventually passed the following order on 3.6.2003:-
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