SEN, J. - (1.) THE Judgment of the court was delivered by
(2.) THE appellant is a Company engaged in the manufacture of coal tar products. An exemption notification was issued by the central government exempting tar falling under Tariff Item II of the central Excise Tariff from the whole of excise duty leviable thereon. Tariff Item No. 11 is: JUDGEMENT_297_1_1998Html1.htm THE exemption notification is as follows: "Tar is exempt from duty TAR 121/62-CE, dated 13-6-1962 In exercise of the powers conferred by Rule 8(1 of the central Excise Rules, 1944, the central government hereby exempts tar falling under Item II with effect from 24/04/1962, from the whole of the excise duty leviable thereon." The appellant's case before the excise authority was that its products were fully exempt from excise duty by virtue of the above notification. The case of the Department, on the other hand, is that the goods manufactured by the appellant did not come within the ambit of Tariff Item II. Therefore, there is no question of granting any exemption from excise duty to these products. The dispute, ultimately went to the tribunal. The tribunal, after hearing the parties and taking into consideration the report of the Chemical Examiner, came to the conclusion that some of the goods manufactured by the appellant came within the ambit of clause (5 of Tariff Item II and, therefore, were exempt from excise duty. The Tribunal, however, held that no relief could be given to the assessee in respect of some of the products in view of an earlier decision in the case of Indian Aluminium Co. Ltd. v. Collector of Customs. The relevant part of the order of the tribunal is as under: "We do not see any reason to deviate from the above-referred to decision. Respectfully following the same, we uphold the classification of items at Serial Nos. 3 to 8 under Item 68, CET. Notification No. 121/62 applies only to tar falling under Item No. 11(5. Therefore, it does not apply to the subject pitches." The goods mentioned in Serial Nos. 3 to 8 of the Chemical Examiner's Report were as under: JUDGEMENT_297_1_1998Html2.htm
(3.) THE tribunal did not give any separate reasons of its own for coming to its decision- but merely followed the judgment of another bench of the tribunal in the case of Indian Aluminium Co. Ltd. v. Collector of Customs. In that case, it was held that coal tar and coal tar pitch were-two separate commodities. Technical literature showed that pitch was obtained from distillation of coal tar. No evidence had been produced to show that from the pitch, which was the residuary product of distillation of tar, any further distillation product could be obtained. THE coal tar comprised of many constituents and if any part of these constituents were removed by distillation, then some constituents would remain in it. This tar could be considered as partially distilled tar and remaining identifiable constituents could be distilled out of it. So far as the pitch was concerned, no further identifiable products were obtained from the same on distillation for it to be considered as partially distilled tar. It was further held that the term "partially distilled tar" as used in Item 11(2 of the central Excise Tariff had not been defined in any technical book. Therefore, it had to be understood in the context of distillation process and coal tar as stated above. There was no reason for considering coal tar pitch as partially distilled tar. It was an item distinct from coal tar or partially distilled tar.;