HYDERABAD INDUSTRIES LIMITED Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants (original writ petitioners) import asbestos fibre and pay Customs duty thereon under entry 25.01.32, which reads :

(2.) The constitutionality of the imposition of excise duty on asbestos fibre is not now disputed.

(3.) What asbestos is and how it is recovered is set out in the judgment under appeal, and it is not faulted on this account. This is what it says : Major producers of asbestos are Canda and U.S.S.R. Asbestos is defined as general name for the useful fibrous varieties of a number of rock forming minerals. The value of asbestos ensues from the incombustible nature of the products fabricated from the various grades of mineral fibres. (Vide Me. Graw Hill Encyclopaedia of Science and Technology. Vol. 1 (1977) page 618). Most absestos fibres occur in small cracks in massive rocks and are difficult to recover e.g. a large cubic open pit mine handles approximately 16 tons of ore. 8 tons of waste ore and 23 tons of over-burden to produce a single ton of asbestos. To mine chrysotile, the ore is first blasted loose. The larger asbestos seams i.e. those that are at least 9.5 mm wide are picked from the ore after blasting and adhering rock is removed with a pick. The resulting chuncks of ore called crudes. Which may contain as much as 80% water, ore then dried in preparation for the next stage separation into fibres. Fibre separation is accomplished mainly by a series of shaking screens, special separators called cyclones, and additional crushers or fibrizers. At each shaking screen the liberated fibres are sucked off by an airstream and collected for grading and packaging. The larger pieces of ore which are retained by the screen are recycled for further crushing. Smaller pieces, which pass through the screen and are called throughs are sent to the next crushing or fiberizing sequence. The extremely small pieces that fall through the screens following the final fiberizer are discarded. (Vide Encyclopaedia Americans Vol. II (1970) Page 427, 428). Similarly the Encyclopaedia of Natural Chemical analysis, Vol. II gives the processing of asbestos fibre as follows :-