Nylon resins cover 'polyamide resins' - Notification No. 241/82-C.E. - Central Excise - 93/60/85-CX.3

Nylon resins cover 'polyamide resins' - Notification No. 241/82-C.E. Letter No. 93/60/85-CX.3 Dated 8-5-1986 Government of India Ministry of Finance (Department of Revenue) New Delhi In terms of Notification No. 190/82-C.E., dated 3-6-1982, which was replaced by Notification No. 241/82-C.E., dated 1-11-1982 (as amended), issued under erstwhile Item 15A of CET, 'nylon resins' was one of the 16 items on which concessional excise duty was prescribed. Doubts had been raised as to whether the term 'nylon resins' appearing in the said notification was wide enough in its scope to mean 'polyamide resins'. 2. The matter has since been examined by the Board in consultation with technical authorities. It is observed that the expression 'nylon' initially figured as a trade name given by its inventor and at that time it had a specific connotation and referred to only certain specific nylon varieties, denoted by a number (such as Nylon-6, Nylon-66 etc.). These specific varieties had the properties which made them suitable for particular uses, such as, its use for replacement of traditional materials employed in engineering industry like steel, non-ferrous metals etc. However, over the years the appiication of nylon has widened to cover several other uses such as tyre cord, moulded products, parashoots, films, gears and bearings, wire insulation pentips etc. Thus the expression 'nylon' came to be known and used in a generic sense rather than in a specific sense. In the condensed Dictionary by Gesner G. Hawley, 'nylon' is defined to be a generic name for a family of polyamide polymers characterised by the presence of the amide group. There are other authoritative books like Encyclopaedia of Chemical Technology by Kirk Othmer wherein it hás been stated that polyamides are frequentiy referred to as 'nylon'. 3. Although technical distinction has been drawn in certain books between few types of polyamides such as versamides and nylon, this consideration would not override the fact that, from the point of view of commercial usage and understanding, nylon resins are accepted as nothing but polyamide resins. Even the technical aspect of distinction between nylon resins and polyamide resins is overlapping to an extent that genuine doubts could be cast over the question of treating polyamide resins differently from nylon resins for excise levy purposes. In one of the more recent technical reference 'Plastic Material and Processes' by Seymour S. Schwartz and Sidney H. Goodmen (1982), the overlapping nature of the expressions 'polyamide' and 'nylon' hás been brought out in the following manner : Commercially the use of amino acid would involve many difficulties. They are biologically synthesised in the human body, however, such processes are too complex and expensive to duplicate under laboratory or commercial conditions. For this reason, diamines and dibasic acids are condensed to give polymer by amide linkages. These polymers have been given the generic name 'nylon'. 4. Taking the various factors into consideration, the Board is of the view that the expression 'nylon resins' appearing in the Notification No. 241/82-C.E., dated 11-11-1982 (as amended) could legitimately be said to refer to 'polyamide resins'. 5. It may further be noted that in the new notification No. 133/86-C.E., dated 1-3-1986, the expression 'polyamide' has been used in preference to 'nylon' so as to set at rest any technical doubts on this issue.