TATA ENGINEERING AND LOCOMOTIVE Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this writ petition, the petitioner-Company (the Company for short) has prayed for issuing appropriate writ directing the respondents to approve the price lists already filed, annexure 2 to the writ petition and such further price lists as may hereafter be filed by the Company without taking recourse to Rule 9B of the Rules framed under the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 (the Act for short) and without in any manner taking into consideration the prices of the motor vehicles sold by the Company from its Regional Sales Offices (R.S.O. for short) and to forbear from provisionally approving/ assessing the price lists that may be filed hereafter by the Company.

(2.) The Company is engaged in manufacturing motor vehicles at its factory at Jamshedpur and is liable to pay excise duty under the Act. The motor vehicles are removed at the place of manufacture. Those are sold and delivered by the Company to buyers at the factory gate at Jamshedpur. It also sells its vehicles from various R.S.Os. spread over the country. The prices at which the vehicles are sold at R.S.Os. are higher than the prices at the factory gate at Jamshedpur. 2A. The Company submitted price lists to respondent No. 2 for approval. Since the normal prices at which the motor vehicles are sold at the place of removal, i.e. factory gate at Jamshedpur are available, the declared prices in the price lists were the prices at which motor vehicles are sold at the factory gate. However, from March 1983 and onwards none of the price lists submitted by the Company was finally approved by respondent No. 2; instead most of the price lists were approved provisionally under rule 9B of the Rules on the alleged ground that evidence regarding the price of motor vehicles sold through R.S.Os. were required to be furnished. Some of the price lists were not approved at all and are still pending. One price list dated 1.2.1986 was approved with the rider that approval would not apply to the sales made through the R.S.Os.

(3.) Respondent No. 2 called for information regarding sale and price structure of the vehicles sold through the R.S.Os. with regard to the price lists approved provisionally and also the price lists for which no order had been passed as yet. The Company replied that the informations called for were unnecessary and irrelevant for passing final order on the price lists submitted by it. Respondent No. 2 insisted that the Company must furnish the price lists at which the motor vehicles are sold through R.S.Os. The Company refused to give information on the ground that since the normal price of motor vehicles ordinarily sold by the Company to a buyer in course of wholesale trade at the place of removal, i.e. at the factory gate at Jamshedpur, was and is known, that must be treated as the valuation of the vehicles for the purpose of charging duty of excise. Respondent No. 2 refused to accept this and demanded the prices at which the motor vehicles are sold through R.S.Os.