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1990 (3) TMI 174

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..... the relevant Notification No. 77/86 dated 10-2-1986 exempted sugar and other items which were for the time being fully exempt from duty of excise leviable under the Central Excise Salt Act from the whole of the additional duty of excise. 2. As such they were not required to pay any additional duty. 3. The learned Assistant Collector has interpreted this notification to mean that the exemption was available to those varieties of sugar which were assessable at nil rate of duty under the schedule itself. 4. It was their contention that this interpretation was incorrect inasmuch as the Additional Duties of Excise Act, 1957 also has a schedule under which 1701 Kandasarisugar and 17.21 palmyrah sugar both carry nil rate of duty. Therefor .....

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..... e relevant period and were not wholly exempt from basic duty under any notification. 11. The notification number 109/87 referred to by the learned counsel merely exempts that quantity of sugar which is produced in excess of the quantity of sugar produced during the normal season. In other words this notification does not exempt the variety of sugar as such but only certain quantity of sugar produced in excess. 12. It was his contention that in view of the language of the Notification 77/86 we are concerned with the variety of sugar and not with the quantity of the sugar. And since the varieties of sugar produced by the appellant were not fully exempted from the basic duty they were not entitled to the benefit of Notification 77/86 from .....

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..... f Central Excise Act also carry a Nil tariff rate of additional duty in terms of this schedule as such there was no reason to issue an exemption notification in such cases as no such notification was called for if the Department s view was right. Therefore he would submit that the premise on which the Assistant Collector has based his order is incorrect. 16. It was also his contention that if the interpretation adopted by the learned DR is taken into account the result would be that this exemption notification would become redundant and ineffective as there is no such case where the basic duty on a variety of sugar is Nil (rate) in CE Tariff and yet a rate of duty has been prescribed in the Tariff under the Additional Duties Act. 17. It .....

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..... of the learned DR have some force in as much as an exemption notification is required to be interpreted strictly in terms of the language of the notification and Notification Number 77/86 undoubtedly refers to varieties of sugar and the word quantity has not been used therein. At the same time the learned counsel s pleadings have stronger force in as much as not a single instance could be shown by the department where the variety of sugar mentioned in the Central Excise Tariff carried a nil basic duty and yet the same variety carried a specified rate of additional duty under the Addl. Duties Act. On the contrary the learned counsel succeeded in showing that in each of such cases, where a variety of sugar carried a nil rate of basic duty .....

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..... n effect, no basic duty was required to be paid by virtue of being one of the varieties covered by exemption notification(s) issued under the Central Excise Act (although the word quantity has not been explicitly used). 24. We also observe that the judgment of the Calcutta High Court cited by the learned DR was distinguishable as rightly pointed out by the learned counsel. 25. We are of the view that the learned counsel also rightly relied upon the order of the Tribunal reported in 1986 25 E.L.T. 318 with which we are in agreement. Hence following the ratio thereof we accept the plea of the learned counsel. 26. We may also mention that even otherwise the order of the learned Collector (Appeals) does not squarely deal with the above .....

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