VALLABH GLASS WORKS LIMITED Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners are manufacturing glass products. Within the meaning of Item 23A in the First Schedule to the Central Excises and Salt Act 1944 they have been manufacturing sheet glass and plate glass and not other glassware or glass products. The petitioners in another factory of theirs have been manufacturing wooden containers for their glass products. The iron strappings are purchased by them from the market. They are wrapped round the wooden boxes in which their glass products are packed. In regard to wooden containers the petitioners applied on 21st May 1975 for a licence in pursuance of Item 68 in the First Schedule to the Central Excises and Salt Act 1944 They were given the modified licence on 1st September 1975. The factory manufacturing glass products and the factory manufacturing wooden containers were segregated and it was only in pursuance of that segregation that the modified licence was granted to the petitioners.

(2.) In these two petitions the questions which have been raised by the learned Advocate General on behalf of the petitioners are as follows:-

(3.) The petitioners filed the price list on 29th October 1975. It was provisionally approved. The provisional order directed the inclusion of cost of packing in the assessable value of the petitioners glass products. There was an appeal to the Appellate Collector who directed the Assistant Collector of Central Excise to either approve or disapprove finally the price list. That order was made on 30th March 1976. A revision application was filed before the Central Government on 19th September 1976 which is still pending. On 11th October 1976 a fresh notice was issued to the petitioners by the Assistant Collector of Central Excise calling upon them to show cause in regard to matters specified therein. The petitioners replied to that notice. On 21st May 1977 the Assistant Collector of Central Excise made an order by which he directed that value of the cost of packing should be included in the assessable value of the petitioners glass products. It is that order which is challenged in these petitions.