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" ANALYSIS OF SECTION 14 ANALYSIS OF SECTION 14 OF FEDERAL EXCISE ACT, 2005 By Shahbaz Butt, Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan, Lahore Section 14 of the Federal Excise Act, 2005 (for brevity FEA) as per its heading, deals with the recovery of unpaid duty, erroneously refunded duty and arrears of duty etc. Perusal of the head note reveals that it focuses on enforcement of levy, payment and recovery of duty in the aforesaid three eventualities and prescribes and stipulate the requirements for proceedings in the matter. Subsection (1) of section 14 of the Federal Excise Act, 2005 deals and addresses the four situations in which said provision can be invoked: Where any person; a. for any reason has not levied the duty; or b. having levied or not levied the duty has not paid the duty; or c. has short levied or short paid such duty; or d. where by reason of some error (it may be an advertent or inadvertent error) an amount of duty has been refunded. Perusal of the provisions of law would reveal that the word 'or has specifically been used between all the four eventualities. Usually the word 'or' refers to alternate positions. However the same can be read as 'and' as the circumstances and the language of a statute permit and the eventualities appearing subsequent thereto can be taken conjunctively. The Superior Courts in a number of cases has held that the word 'or' is interchangeable with the word 'and' depending on the language of the statute. In this regard I am fortified from the judgment, reported as 1980 SCMR 391 and 1990 PTD 389. Having explained the above, by placing the word 'or' in exjusta position with the word 'and' in the provision of law aforesaid, I am of the considered…