TMI Blog1986 (6) TMI 125X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... who held that the labels served only the purpose of displaying the name of the manufacturers and the name of the product and were in no way related to the printing industry and, therefore, could not be described as products of that industry. He accordingly modified the Assistant Collector s order and directed assessment of the goods under item 68 without the benefit of the exemption under the notification No.55/75-CE. 2. The learned counsel for the party read from notification No. 55/75-CE and said that the exemption covered All products of the printing industry, not being newspapers and printed periodicals. He argued that this exemption covers all products, not only some products, of the printing industry and this assessment had been approved by the Assistant Collector. He read the Collector s show cause notice F. No. V(V-Cell)30-47/80/609 dated 29th May, 1980 and their reply to that notice and pointed out that they wrote that their products denote the name of the manufacturer; the words like Atlas or Raleigh are not printed on the labels, the product would be totally useless and would not be accepted by customers who would like to buy brands of their own choice. The word ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the primary use of the goods, fall in Chapter 49. The printing on a packaging paper or a wrapping paper or a cardboard carton or other containers is always incidental to the primary use of such containers or cartons or wrappers. The wrappers or the containers are discarded as soon as the contents they contain are consumed or used; the cartons are no longer containers, and the printing on them becomes meaningless; they then are not even incidental to the primary use, a use which had disappeared when the contents were taken out and consumed. For a newspaper, the printing is not incidental; it is its main use. The printing provides the purpose for which a newspaper is bought and sold and used; it has no other purpose. It is the same with this label because without the printing it is nothing; its only purpose is in the printing that it carries, which communicates to the customer what the product is or what the brand of the product is. It is a communication to the reader about the product and its manufacturer and sometimes about its quality as and when a buyer who prefers one brand of bicycle to another does so only by the name printed on the label. That label announces to the custo ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tory. On the other hand, the Collector did not discharge his burden even through they had discharged theirs. 10. Printing is an identity and the appellants have been members of the Bombay Master Printers Association much before 1975 when notification No. 55/75-CE was enacted. 11. Printed textiles do not fall under item 68. But their products are not such to fall in items 1 to 57. The Collector accepts that their goods fall under 68, therefore, the question of printed textiles being given the exemption cannot arise. The Collector did not deal with their reply that their products were known as products of the printing industry. 12. The samples we saw were all made of aluminium and carry several kinds of printing on them. Some of them are meant to be fixed to refrigerators, radios, airconditioners and television sets, others appear to be identity discs or plates of clubs. There is a certificate of an award printed on aluminium sheet of an association; another is the face of a clock and carries the number 1 to 12, there is also a data plate to be fixed to an electrical device indicating the necessary information required in respect of that device. There are other plates which car ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ern; to brand. Said also of footsteps upon soft or yielding ground; to impress. or stamp (a form, figure, mark, etc.) in or on a yielding substance; also, by extension, to set or trace (a mark, figure, etc.) on any surface, by carving, writing, or otherwise. 16. The same dictionary gives a meaning of the word in senses relating to typography. This is to produce (a book, picture etc.) by applying to paper, vellum, etc., in a press or machine, inked types, blocks, or plates, bearing characters or designs. 17. In the technological senses analogous to typographical senses, the dictionary gives the word the meaning to mark (a textile fabric) by hand or machinery with a pattern or design in colours; to transfer to the unglazed surface a decorative design in colour from paper, or in oil from a gelatine sheet or bat; or in photography to produce (a positive picture) by the transmission of light through a negative placed immediately upon the sensitized surface; to produce a photograph. 18. We can see that etymologically the word print refers to various kinds of impresses or marks made by one material on another, softer or more yielding, material or, more impressionable surface. It i ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e. We think the dispute can be resolved if we can answer the question whether the printing on these aluminium metal plates manufactured by M/s. Metagraph are or are not merely incidental to the primary use of the goods. 19. The use of the goods is to be affixed permanently to a product like a bicycle, a radio receiver set, a television set, a motor bicycle, a clock, an airconditioner, a refrigerator and a host of other machines and equipments. According to the learned counsel for M/s. Metagraph, Mr. Lakshmi Kumaran, the metal plates communicate by means of the message in the printed representation they carry on them. Their primary purpose, according to the learned counsel, therefore, is served by the printing which is a means of communication to the reader of a certain basic and vital information. The plate conveys something in language that the reader is able to understand and, therefore, it forms a printed material. There may be metal plates which carry statistics and vital information about, say, an electrical component like a transformer, which may not be intelligible to the common man, but to an electrical engineer they signify important messages. The messages that the plat ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... aw in them. The difference between these labels and the printed packaging papers and cartons is more apparent than real. Obviously the packaging paper cannot do the work that these labels do in regard to their permanency. Furthermore, the contents that the packaging and wrapping papers and cartons hold are by their nature meant to be taken out of their confinement in the package or the carton, if they are to be used. A shirt wrapped in a packaging paper or a pair of shoes in the printed carton or a litre of milk in the printed polythene bag, are soon removed from their packing when they are about to be consumed. But as often as not the shoe or the shirt still carry some printing on it in the form of a tab or a die-impressed embossment that give at least the name of the manufacturer or the size of the wear and sometimes the price. The fact that this is not true with the aluminium label is because the label is attached permanently to its surface. But this must obscure the fact that, like the packaging for a shirt or a pair of shoes, it carries propaganda material advocating the virtues of this or that manufacturer and of the goods he makes. To be sure, the aluminium label will carry ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tly because the contents are soon used up and, therefore, there is nothing more for the carton or the wrapper to contain. The aluminium label, on the other hand, is in association with a product that lasts for years and is discarded only when the product itself is no longer serviceable and is thrown away. The presence of the aluminium label serves the machine as long as the machine lasts and is in service. In its limited life, the paper carton serves the same purpose until it is finally thrown away by the contents having been extracted and having been used. The difference in the longevity of the two points nothing more than to the nature and use of the contents or the products they are created to serve. It is not an indication that one is a product of the printing industry and the other is not. Neither is a product of the printing industry; it is more a case of their being products of the so-called packaging or packing industry of which one hears every now and then. It is significant that in both cases, the principal i.e. the medicine or the machine, determines the useful life of the wrapper or the label, the servitors. 23. Chapter 49 of the harmonized code has this heading : ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... is thousands of miles away and never saw and may never see the actual results of the research and the evolution of the scientific investigations. We read Darwin s Origin of Species and marvel at the rich descriptions given by a mind of unequalled depth of vision, descriptions that have now been accepted by all scientific men; but no one has ever seen the actual act of evolution taking place nor is ever likely to do so. This does not make the theory one bit less scientifically valid even if it is for the most part empirical deductions. 25. The printing on a printed matter is its whole substance and that printed matter is bought for itself and is itself good value for its printed contents. The clientele is wide and varied and knows neither class nor boundary. Printed matter like books, maps, etc. are bought and stored as valuable goods for themselves and for their own sake; old manuscripts have a price far beyond their face value. Trade and advertising materials lead to more commerce in the subject that they write about. And then, of course, we have newspapers, magazines which are widely bought by all educated persons in order to keep abreast of events in their own countries and i ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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