TMI Blog2000 (10) TMI 63X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... their customers. They receive job charges for the work carried out on the materials, namely, rollers provided by their customers. Engraved rollers are sent back under their delivery challans/invoices for the job charges. Appellants also receive orders for supply of engraved rollers and in such cases procure rollers and positives and fabricate the engraved rollers. In such cases, they raise the bills for the blanks, positives and the processing charges for printing. In some cases, positives or rollers were supplied by the appellants for which bills were raised. Positives were used to be returned to the customers along with the engraved rollers. They were under the belief that engraving or re-engraving on rollers was not a process of manufacture within the meaning of Section 2(f) of the Central Excise Act, 1944. 4.Departmental authorities made a search of the premises of the appellants. On the basis of the evidence gathered from there, show cause notices were issued alleging that they had contravened the provisions of Section 6 of the Act read with various Rules made thereunder. The allegation made against the appellants was that they unauthorisedly manufactured engraved rollers/cy ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... avure printing cylinders undertaken on old cylinders will not amount to manufacture, as it is only a process of repair. Shri Lakshmi Kumaran, arguing the case, has also not disputed the legal position that gravure printing on new cylinders amounts to manufacture. On this basis, we proceed to examine whether the process of gravure printing cylinders undertaken on old cylinders amounts to manufacture as defined in Section 2(f) of the Central Excise Act, 1944. 10.New cylinders brought for gravure printing are known as blanks. These blanks become useable only on gravings carried out on the cylinders. Where such work is carried out on the cylinder, the cylinder will not be known as blank. The cylinder, which was useless for the textile industry, becomes useful only on account of the printings engraved on it. By engraving the images on the cylinder, a different commercial commodity comes into existence, inasmuch as it becomes useful in the textile industry for carrying out the printing on fabrics. When the engraving is so carried out on the cylinder, its identity as blank ceases to exist. A new product comes into being which is commercially different in its entirety from the old blank ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... o manufacture. It is actually a process incidental or ancillary to the completion of a manufactured product." This finding entered by the Tribunal was reversed by the Supreme Court on account of the circular issued by the Central Excise authorities that re-rubberising or relining of old and used rollers will not be taken as a process of manufacture after 14-3-1986. Since the State was not in a position to lay any foundation for fixing 14th March, 1986 as the commencement of the period from which the process would not amount to manufacture, their Lordships observed : "Since it is not in dispute that the appellant has been undertaking the same process both before and after the 14th March, 1986 and the law to be applied has not been changed, the transactions prior to 14th March, 1986 would also not amount to manufacture within the meaning of Section 2(f) of the Act." This decision of the Supreme Court should be understood with reference to the decision of the authorities that re-rubberising and relining of old rollers does not amount to manufacture after 14th March, 1986. 13.Learned D.R. relied on a decision rendered by a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court in Jupiter Engr ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... to the Supreme Court as Civil Appeal Nos. 2497 and 2498/99. Their Lordships of the Supreme Court dismissed those appeals after condoning the delay caused in filing them (Vide 2000 (121) E.L.T. A142). As a result of the said dismissal, Mr. Lakshmi Kumaran argued that the decision rendered by the Bench of two Members of this Tribunal got merged into the decision of the Supreme Court and that decision binds this Tribunal. Result, according to him, is that re-engraving of rollers falling under sub-heading 8442.00 of the Schedule to the Central Excise Tariff Act will not amount to manufacture. 15.The above argument of Shri Lakshmi Kumaran was countered by the learned Departmental Representative on the ground that the process of affixing design or carrying out change in the design on nickel perforated cylinder dealt with in the case of Special Prints Ltd. was entirely different from that carried out in the instant case. In the instant ease, the blank cylinders were copper-plated to the required diameter and only thereafter the re-etching is done. When the MS blank is copper-plated for carrying out the etching work, a new product comes into existence and it is only on that new product t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
|
