WESTERN INDIA PLYWOODS LTD Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant is the Western India Plywoods Ltd. Baliapatam, Cannanore District, a company registered under the Companies Act, manufacturing hardboard by what is known as the 'wet process'. THEre is a similar concern manufacturing hardboard by the same wet process in Bombay , which has, though the company was not a party to the writ petition, applied for leave to intervene in the appeal; and we have allowed the prayer. THEre is a third company in Assam, not a party to these proceedings, manufacturing hard-board by what is known as the 'dry process'. THE hardboard produced by the appellant and the Bombay company by the wet process in known as 'sis', smooth on one side, whereas the hardboard produced by the Assam company by the dry process is 's2s', smooth on both sides. It is not necessary to go into the details regarding these two processes.

(2.) UNDER S. 3 of the Central Excises and Salt Act 1944, duties shall be levied and collected on all excisable goods (other than salt)produced or manufactured in India at the rates set forth in the First Schedule. (Provision is also made for levying duty on salt, with which we are not concerned in this case.) Item 16b of the First Schedule prescribes a duty of 15 per cent ad valorem on the tariff value of hardboard. S. 37 (1) of the Act confers power on the Central Government to frame rules to carry into effect the purposes of the Act; and sub-s, 2 thereof provides that, in particular and without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing power, the rules may provide for the several things mentioned in the several clauses in the sub-section. Clause (xvii) of sub-s. 2 provides that such rules may "exempt any goods from the whole or any part of the duty imposed by this act". And the Central Government framed rules, of which R. 8 reads: "power to authorise exemption from duty in special cases (1) The Central Government may, from time to time, by notification in the Official Gazette, exempt, subject to such conditions as may be specified in the notification, any excisable goods from the whole or any part of duty leviable on such goods. (2) The Central Board of Revenue may by special order in each case exempt from payment of duty, under circumstances of an exceptional nature, any excisable goods. " The Central Government issued a notification (Ext. P1)under R. 8 (1) above on 1st February 1968; and the notification exempted hardboard manufactured by dry process involving air felting of fibres from duty in excess of 5 per cent ad valorem and exempted other types of hardboard from duty in excess of 10 per cent ad valorem. The result was that the appellant and the Bombay company were given exemption of 5 per cent while the Assam company was given exemption of 10 per cent: in other words, the appellant and the bombay company had to pay a duty of 10 per cent, while the Assam company had to pay only 5 per cent.

(3.) SHRI M. Natesan, the counsel of the appellant, has drawn our attention to a few American decisions and also to authorities like corpus Juris Secundum, American Jurisprudence, etc. But, we do not think there is any need to consider any of these authorities, because, on the main question in dispute, we have several decisions of our own Supreme Court.