EAST COAST PAPERS MADRAS Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE prayer in the Writ Petition runs in the following lines :

(2.) THE petitioner manufactures polyethelene sandwitch board with the aid of power. Normally this product would attract Item 17(2) of the Excise Tariff set out in the First Schedule to the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944, hereinafter referred to as the Act. THE three notifications referred to in the prayer in the Writ Petition by themselves do not enable the Authorities to levy the excise duty on the polyethelene sandwitch board THE Notification merely specify the limit of exemption. According to the petitioner, no duty at all is leviable on polyethelene sandwitch board. For this stand, what the petitioner would state is that the manufacture of polyethelene sandwitch board could not fall within the technical meaning of 'manufacture' occurring in Section 2(f) of the Act As to how this product polyethelene sandwitch board is manufactured is set out in paragraph 4 of the counter-affidavit filed on behalf of the respondents and the same tands extracted as follows :-

(3.) THIS ratio of the Supreme Court has been taken note of by a Bench of this Court to which I have been a party inBrakes India Ltd.v.Superintendent of Central Excise 1986 (26) ELT 211 Madras)], and there ultimately the proposition was summed up in the following terms :