BRITISH PHYSICAL LABORATORIES INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED Vs. ASSISTANT COLLECTOR OF CENTRAL EXCISE THE APPELLATE COLLECTOR CENTRAL EXCISE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner No. in both the writ petitions is common and it is convenient to dispose of both the matters by a common order.

(2.) The question involved in both these writ petitions is whether the machinery manufactured by the petitioner which is styled as Electronic Stencil Scanner, the manufacture of which was started in 1973, was liable to excise duty in pursuance of the notification dated 1-3-1970 produced as Exhibit R-2 along with the counter-affidavit filed by the respondents. By virtue of that notification, all items falling under item No. 33D of the First Schedule to the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) except those specified in the schedule annexed to the said notification were exempted from payment of excise duty. The schedule to the notification listed 30 items. In response to a communication addressed by the Petitioner submitting that the said machinery was not liable to excise duty and seeking advice in regard to the exisability to duty, the Assistant Collector of Central Excise maintained that it would be liable to excise duty under item No. 13 specified in the notification viz., "Reproducing Machines". The petitioner maintained that this view was not tenable, but under protest arranged to pay the duty and finally the matter was adjudicated by the Assistant Collector. The relevant portion of his order is to be found in para-5 and is as follows:

(3.) The petitioner took up the matter in appeal before the Appellate Collector of Central Excise, Madras. In the memorandum of appeal it was explained that the name 'Electronic Stencil Scanner' actually represented the function of the machine and was not the brand name or trade name and that expression 'scanning' was derived from Television Technology. The relevant submission of the petitioner before the Appellate Collector of Central Excise was as follows: The word "Scanning" is derived from Television Technology. Oxford Concise Dictionary gives the meaning of 'Scan' as "to resolve (a picture) into its elements of light and shade for purposes of transmission." The Electronic Stencil Scanner does exactly this. By process of scanning, the intensity of light or shade on the surface of the document, drawing or design is transmitted into an electronic circuit in the Machine wherein the same is converted into electrical impulses which are then applied to the Special Stencil through a stylus. The stylus charged with the electrical impulses moving on the surface of the stencil engraves it according to the intensity of the electrical impulses. In other words, the Electrical Stencil Scanner simply cuts a stencil. The stencil so cut, enables as ordinary stencil Duplicating Machine to reproduce a number of copies of the document. The function of this Electronic Stencil Scanner can be broadly compared to the block making function in printing technology. Although the impression of any design, photograph, documents is engraved in the form of a block, the Block Making device itself cannot be called a