Customs, Excise and Gold Tribunal - Mumbai
Balmer Lawrie & Co. Ltd. vs Commissioner Of Central Excise, ... on 24 July, 2001
Equivalent citations: 2002(139)ELT645(TRI-MUMBAI)
ORDER Gowri Shankar, Member (T)
1. The application is for waiver of deposit of duty of Rs. 1.87 crores and penalty of Rs. 1.89 crores.
2. The applicant received at its factory at Turbhe steel coils from their manufacturer, Steel Authority of India Ltd. It took credit of duty paid on these coils. Thereafter it either slitted these coils into coils of narrower width or cuts them into sheets. It sent part f the sheets or the slit coils to its own factory at Sewree, after reversing modvat credit that it had taken. The impugned order demands duty and imposes penalty on these two products on the ground that the process amounts to manufacture.
3. After hearing both sides, we find strong prima facie case on merits in the applicant's case. The conference of Chief Commissioners held in August, 2000 considered whether either of these processes amounted to manufacture. It was clear that the activity of making sheets out of the coils would not be manufacture, and was uncertain about the second activity of cutting coils into coils of narrower width. It recommended insertion of chapter note to the relevant chapter to provide that the process amounted to manufacture. The Trade Notice No. 62/92 issued in October, 1999 of the Commissioner of Central Excise, Mumbai, itself permits registered dealers to decoil and cut the coils into sheets. From both these documents it is clear that the department did not consider either of these processes to be manufacture.
4. In this situation, we deem it proper to waive deposit of duty and penalty and stay their recovery.