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1987 (9) TMI 47

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..... nded by Notification No. 20/78-Cus., dated January 28, 1978 the Central Government exempted articles, other than copper waste and scrap and unwrought copper (refined or not), when imported into India, from so much of the duty of customs leviable thereon as is in excess of 40 per cent ad valorem. 4. Since in respect of some consignments of brass waste and scrap imported by the petitioner the Customs authorities have made purported assessments on the Bills of Entry by wrongfully ad illegally levying basic Customs duty at the rate of 80 per cent ad valorem the petitioner has come up before this Court for redress under Article 226 of the Constitution. This is because according to the petitioner, Customs duty on the said articles should have b .....

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..... aised. Mr. Bajoria, appearing as the learned senior Counsel on behalf of the petitioner, conceded fairly and frankly that in view of the decision already taken by the Supreme Court, this Court could not take a different view of the matter even if this Court is of the view that the point now sought to be raised on behalf of the petitioner is substantial and has not been duly considered by the Supreme Court. 10. Mr. Bajoria, however, contended that since an application for reviw has been filed before the Supreme Court for reconsideration of its decision in Khandelwal's case (supra) and the said application is sub-judice, this Court may simply record the contentions made on behalf of the petitioner in the judgment while disposing of the matt .....

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..... ded that in case the Central Government was using the expression 'copper waste and scrap' in the exemption notifications in its extended sense as per Section Notes 3 and 4, it would not have taken the trouble to mention different articles individually which are includible in the expression 'copper waste and scrap'. In this connection it was also contended that exemption from payment of Customs duty either partially or as a whole, is a Government policy depending upon the local market condition and it is unlikely that similar market condition would prevail in respect of all the alloys of copper at the same time requiring the Government to grant exemption to all such imported alloys simultaneously. In the ordinary commercial parlance, it wa .....

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..... ch unequivocally indicates that the framers of the Notifications understood these two expressions to mean two different things. Reliance is placed by the Counsel on the decisions of this Court in Desh Bandhu Gupta v. Delhi Stock Exchange Association, (1979) 3 S.C.R 373 and K.P. Verghese v. L.T.I. (1982) 1 S.C.R 629 in support of their submission that the contemporaneous exposition is a legitimate aid to interpretation. Therefore, so the contention goes, even assuming for the purpose of argument that copper scrap includes brass scrap, that conclusion must be resisted in view of the history of the Exemption Notifications issued from time to time." 13. And the Supreme Court's answer was as follows : "Reliance was also placed by the appella .....

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