- (1.) The appellant is aggrieved by the decision of the Tribunal upholding the demand on account of excise duty under the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 (as it then stood) (REFERRED TO as "the Act") for the period 1/5/1981 to 28/2/1986.
(2.) The appellant has made the following submissions: (I) The Department had wrongly classified the conveyor belts manufactured by the appellant under Tariff Item 19 (111) instead of Tariff item 68 of the Act. The language of Tariff Item 19 (111) clearly shows that it applied only to fabrics treated with natural and artificial plastic. It is submitted that there are three kinds of plastic used for such treatment viz. natural, artificial and synthetic. Synthetic fabrics treated with synthetic plastic were excluded from Tariff Item 19 (111). It is said that the appellant's conveyor belts were manufactured with synthetic plastic and therefore not covered by Tariff Item 19 (111). (Ii) Both the Tribunal and this Court have held that conveyor belts of the kind manufactured by the appellant were not classifiable under Tariff item 68. Reliance has been placed on the decisions of the Tribunal in international Conveyors Ltd. v. CCE, International Conveyors Ltd. v. CCE, Multiple Fabrics Co. (P) Ltd. v. CCE and the decision of this court in CCE v. Multiple Fabrics (P) Ltd. (Iii) The Central Board of Excise and Customs had issued a tariff advice on 3-11-1980 in connection with the "plastic-coated PVC- impregnated conveyor beltings" by which it is said that such item was classifiable under Tariff Item 68. The tariff advice was binding on the revenue as has been held by this Court in CCE v. Usha Martin industries and CCE v. Dhiren Chemical Industries. (Iv) The reliance placed by the Department as well as by the Tribunal on the decision of this Court in CCE v. Fenoplast (P) Ltd. is misplaced as that decision relates to PVC-impregnated fabrics viz. rexine cloth and not conveyor belts at all.
(3.) Learned counsel for the respondent, however, has submitted that the decision in Fenoplast (P) Ltd. clearly indicates the method by which products such as PVC-impregnated conveyor belts were to be classified and applying that method the commodity manufactured by the appellant comes only under Tariff Item 19 (III). It is further submitted that the tariff advice had been issued prior to the introduction of Section 37-B in the Act and, therefore, would not bind the Revenue insofar as it was contrary to the decision of this Court in Fenoplast (P) Ltd.;