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TMI Blog1983 (10) TMI 245X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s involve a common issue and are, therefore, disposed off by this common order. 3. The appellants (hereinafter referred to as Bharat Petroleum), by a letter dated 13-10-1975 to the Assistant Collector of Central Excise, Bombay, sought permission to supply bunker supplies as ships stores, at the concessional rates of basic excise and Mineral Products Additional excise duties in terms of Notification No. 11/C.E., dated 5-4-1949, as amended by Notification No. 43/C.E., dated 11-11-1954, to lighterage vessels employed to unload crude oil cargo from giant tankers anchored 14 miles off the Indian Coast beyond the territorial waters and bring the cargo to an Indian port for discharge. The contention was that the lighterage vessels would real ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ctor of Customs and another - 1976 TAX L.R. 2108. In this case, the super tankers could not enter the Indian Port, due to their deep draft requirements, for direct discharge of their cargo on the wharf. They, therefore, worked in moorings within or outside the harbour and discharged their cargo into a number of smaller lighterage vessels for carriage of the Cargo to the destination ports including Calcutta. These lighterage vessels either discharged a part of the cargo at the port where the lighterage took place and proceeded to Calcutta or proceeded direct to Calcutta or such other destination as the Government of India required. After consideration of the definitions of "Coastal goods" [Section 2(7) of the Act, 1962], "foreign-going vesse ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... -D in support of this submission. 8. Now, apart from the above considerations, let us examine the claim of Bharat Petroleum with reference to the relevant provisions of the Central Excise Law. This is necessary because in the Turner Morrison case, the question was with reference to customs duty on fuel and stores. In the present case, the question is with reference to excise duties. The matter has to be examined with reference to the provisions of the excise law rather than the customs law. The ratio of the Calcutta High Court judgment may not, therefore, squarely apply in the circumstances of the present case. 9. Central Excise Rule 12 provides that the Central Government may, by notification, grant rebate of duty paid on excis ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ions mentioned in column 3 of the Table. This column 3 read : "Any country or territory outside India excluding Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim". The extent of the rebate was the whole of the duty paid. Can it be said that the bunkers supplied to the lighterage vessels were for consumption on board a vessel bound for a foreign port, as laid down in Notification No. 11/49 or that their destination was a country or territory outside India, as laid down in Notification No. 197/62? Surely, a spot in the high seas beyond the territorial waters is not a foreign port not is it a country. Is it a territory outside India? The expression "Territory" has not been defined in the Central Excise or the allied law relating to Customs. The Concise Oxford Dictiona ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... here was any other notification on the lines of Section 89 of the Customs Act, 1962, the position may well have been different. We had asked the Counsels on both sides whether the expression "territory" had been judicially interpreted but they could not throw any light in the matter. In the result, we have to conclude that a place beyond the territorial waters of India is not a "territory" outside India for the purpose of Notification No. 197/62 and, therefore, the benefit of the said notification was not available to Bharat Petroleum. Nor was the voyage of the lighterage vessel a coastal voyage in as much as it was only a voyage out of and back to the same port and not between two ports round the coast of the country. 11. In the ligh ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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