TMI Blog1987 (9) TMI 173X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ent. 4. The learned advocate makes the point that the impugned products are not lighting switches at all. Their function, it is claimed, is not to illuminate. The actual functioning of the impugned products has been explained to us. 5. It is emphasized that in commercial parlance also the products are not known as general purpose electric goods and that they are not available with dealers of electric goods. It is stated that they are available with dealers in motor vehicle parts only. In this connection Shri Lakshmikumaran relies on the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Atul Glass Industries Ltd. - 1986(25) E.L.T. 473. 6. Appellants also state that the impugned products are for exclusive use in motor vehicles and are sold as original equipment to Ashok Leyland. our attention has also been drawn to a Tariff Advice No. 48/84, dated the 12th September, 1984 issued by the Central Board of Excise Customs, according to which, handle bar switches for motor-cycles are excluded from the purview of Tariff Item 61 and are stated to be classifiable under Tariff Item 68. 7. Shri Lakshmikumaran further makes the point that even if the goods are held to be correctly classifia ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... which indisputably are motor vehicle parts, are as follows : (a) Flasher switch : This is for indication of the direction in which the driver intends to turn the vehicle through an indicator light. (b) Combination switch : This is meant to energise the starter solenoid through the starter button. When the switch is in the off position, current is not available to any of the switch output points. Combination switch is also headlight switch, but in different positions it provides for operation of horn, ignition switch and ignition coil, wiper switch and wiper motor and fuel gauge. (c) Horn and dipper switch : The top portion of the switch operates the horn and the bottom portion of the switch alters the beam to bright or dim. This, it is submitted, is not a lighting switch but a change-over switch. 11. It seems to us that there is no gainsaying the following facts in regard to the above products : Firstly, these are not general purpose electric switches but they are parts of motor vehicles. Secondly, insofar as horn and dipper switch is concerned, whether it operates for blowing of the horn or for altering the high beam to low beam or the reverse, it cannot really be con ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... o impressed by the argument that in common trade parlance, the impugned items are not known as electrical switches nor are they to be found in shops dealing with electrical goods as such. There is no denying that these are motor vehicle parts and they would be found with dealers of such parts. In this connection, we feel that the appellant has rightly relied on the decision of the Supreme Court in Atul Glass Industries Ltd. (Supra). The relevant part of the judgment which we feel clinches the issue before us is extracted below : The test commonly applied to such cases is : How is the product identified by the class or section of people dealing with or using the product? That is a test which is attracted whenever the statute does not contain any definition. Porritts and Spencer (Asia) Ltd. v. State of Haryana (1978) 42 S.T.C. 433 = 1983 E.L.T. 1607 (S.C.). It is generally by its functional character that a product is so identified. In Commissioner of Sales Tax, U.P. v. Macneill Barry Ltd. Kanpur (1985) 2 S.C.ALE 1093 =. 1986 (23) E.L.T. 5 (S.C.), this Court expressed the view that ammonia paper and ferro paper, used for obtaining prints and sketches of site plans could not be d ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... es (1976) 37 S.T.C. 33 in the negative. To the same effect is the decision of this Court in Indo International Industries v. Commissioner of Sales Tax, Uttar Pradesh, (1981) 3 S.C.R. 294 = 1981 E.L.T. 325 (S.C.), where hypodermic clinical syringes were regarded as falling more accurately under the entry relating to hospital equipment and apparatus rather than under the entry which related to glasswares in the U.P. Sales Tax Act." 14. It seems to us quite clearly that the items in question are basically motor vehicle parts. They are not lighting switches as such and they are certainly not known or dealt with in the trade as electric lighting switches. The learned S.D.R., in the course of her arguments, referred to the decision of this Bench in the case of Collector of Central Excise, Kanpur v. West Glass Works - (Supra), but we do not understand how it can support the department s point of view because this decision reiterated that if any term or expression has been defined in the enactment, then it must be understood in the sense in which it is defined but in the absence of any definition being given in the enactment, the meaning of the term in common parlance or commercial p ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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