Thomas, J. - (1.) The common question involved in all these appeals is whether the benefit of excise duty exemption (granted by the Central Government as per certain notifications) can be claimed in respect of commodities made out of raw materials on which no excise duty was payable. The relevant notifications exempted such commodities from excise duty under the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 (for short "the Act"), if they were produced from materials on which the appropriate amount of duty of excise has already been paid. As the Central Excise and Gold (Control) Appellate Tribunal (for short the Tribunal) by different orders upheld such claims made by certain manufacturers the Revenue has filed these appeals through the Collectors of Central Excise concerned.
(2.) Avoiding proliferation with facts in different appeals we think it is enough to reproduce the facts in Civil Appeal No. 2319 of 1989 filed by the Collector of Excise, Patna against the respondent M/s. Usha Martin Industries Ltd.
(3.) Respondent in that case manufactures wire-rods (which fall under Tariff Item 26AA (1a) of the Central Excise Tariff). For manufacturing such wire-rods the raw materials used were steel products including billets. Such steel products were procured from stockyards of manufacturers like TISCO etc. The Superin-tendent of Central Excise concerned, while making assessment of the duty payable by the respondent, demanded that excise duty should have been paid on wire-rods since the billets used for its manufacture were totally exempted from duty. The Assistant Collector of Central Excise upheld the aforesaid stand of the Superintendent and assessed excise duty on 1721.36 Mt. tonnes of such wire-rods. However, the said order was reversed by the Collector of Central Excise (Appeals) on the premise that the input goods cleared on nil payment of excise duty should be treated as goods cleared after payment of appropriate amount of duty. Revenue did not agree with that premise and hence they approached the Tribunal in second appeal and the Tribunal passed the impugned order confirming the view of the Collector of Appeals.;