DCW LTD Vs. COLLECTOR OF CENTRAL EXCISE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant is a manufacturer of Caustic Soda by electrolysis of the brine solution. Hydrogen and Chlorine fumes are released in that process of electrolysis. Those fumes when dissolved in water result in the production of Hydrochloric acid. The appellant thus produces hydrochloric acid as a byproduct. The industrial licence which the appellant had obtained when it established the manufacturing facility in the year 1962 specified one of the items of manufacture as 100% hydrochloric acid.

(2.) THE appellant commenced manufacture in January 1963. As hydrochloric acid was exempt from the levy of Central Excise upto 28. 2. 1979, there was no occasion for the appellant to file any price list for that byproduct till then. It is the case of the appellant and that is also accepted by the Department that almost all of the Hydrochloric acid so manufactured was captively consumed.

(3.) 1993 and once again remanded the matter for fresh adjudication. 5. WHEN such adjudication was still pending, on 27.