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2002 (1) TMI 164

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..... by the ld. Commissioner for rejecting the grant of benefit of the notification is brought out in Paras 8 to 10 of his order which is reproduced herein below : "I do not agree with the above submissions of the party. The relevant notifications exempt parts of aeroplanes or helicopters required for manufacture or servicing of aeroplanes or helicopters (other than rubber tyres and tubes for aeroplanes and in the Explanation, it has been explained that for the purposes of the exemption, parts of aeroplanes or helicopters shall include engines, engine parts, wireless transmission apparatus, wireless receivers, iron and steel washers and screws, ball and roller bearings and other parts falling within the first schedule or second schedule, as the case may be. Therefore, the main issue to be decided is whether Silver Oxide, Zinc Storage/Nickel Cadmium batteries are parts of the aeroplane or not. The said notification exempts parts of aeroplanes and parts for the purposes of Section XVII are classifiable under Heading 88.03. Section Note 2 of Section XVII specially excludes electrical machinery and equipment falling under Chapter 85 as parts and parts and accessories of aeroplanes. For r .....

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..... id batteries are not be treated as parts of aircraft and consequently they are not entitled for exemption under the relevant notifications. The party has relied upon the decision of the CEGAT in the case of Century Textiles and Inds. Ltd. [2001 (127) E.L.T. 716]. This decision of the Hon'ble Tribunal does not appear to be applicable to the facts of this case as the wordings of the C.E. notifications and the customs notifications are not identical. The case laws cited, reported in 1989 (42) E.L.T. 235, 1989 (29) E.L.T. 68 and 1996 (88) E.L.T. 151 are not applicable to this case in view of the decision of the Hon'ble Tribunal in the case of Winter Misra Diamond Tools Ltd. (surpa). The party has submitted in defence a certificate issued by the Ministry of Defence, Directorate of Purchase to the effect that the batteries supplied by them are exclusively used as parts of various aircrafts in the Indian Air Force. This certificate produced is of no avail to the party as the said batteries are not parts of the aircraft as discussed above." 3. Arguing for the appellant's ld. Counsel Shri V. Sridharan and J. Sankararaman contended that the notification in question clearly exempts .....

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..... ead to interpret the notification. He submits that the Commissioner has erred in not reading the judgment at all and has mis-applied the judgment to the present notification which was wider in scope and granted benefit to all the parts of the aircraft under any chapter. He submitted that the Commissioner's ruling that only parts of the aircraft falling under Chapter 88.03 would be eligible will not be correct. The Chapter 88.03 itself carried NIL rate of duty. It would not be logical in that circumstances for the legislature to pass a separate notification exempting parts of aircraft under any chapter heading when Chapter 88 carried NIL rate of duty. A clear reading of the notification indicates that any part used in aeroplane or helicopter falling under any other chapter of the tariff would get the benefit and not restricted to Chapter Heading 88.03 of the tariff. He contended that the pari materia notifications under Customs tariff issued by the Govt. under Customs Notification No. 11/97-Cus having identical wording came up for interpretation for granting benefit of the notification to the same battery used in the aircraft and the Tribunal held that the benefit of notification is .....

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..... hapter 85.03 and notification granted benefit to components of watches falling under Chapter 91. Likewise he relied on the judgment of Standard Batteries v. CC as reported in 2000 (119) E.L.T. 675 wherein electric storage batteries were held to be not assemblies or sub-assemblies of mother vehicles and he prayed for confirmation of the demand. 6. On a careful consideration of the submissions made by both the sides and on perusal of the entire records, we notice that the appellants have produced enormous evidence to show that the item is used as a part of aircraft. The appellants are manufacturing special storage batteries for the aircraft manufactured by the defence. The documents in the paper book clearly demonstrates that the silver oxide zinc battery manufactured was in terms of specified design and specification and had undergone various tests for the purpose of approval for use as a part of aircraft. The certificate issued by the Govt. of India, Ministry of Defence and various tests carried out are annexed to the paper book from Pages 11 to 152 of the paper book. All these materials include the certificates issued by the defence experts and the scientists attached to .....

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..... from duty. The Commissioner in the impugned order has denied the benefit on the plea that the item falls within the Note 2(f) of Section Note XVII and thus they do not fall under Chapter 88. There is no dispute that the item is classified under Heading 85.07 of the tariff. But the notification is a blanket notification granting benefit to parts of aeroplane or helicopter required for manufacture or servicing of aeroplane or helicopter other than rubber tyres and tubes for aeroplane falling under any chapter in terms of Notification No. 6/96. Subsequent Notification No. 8/96 merely modified to mention Chapter 88 or any other chapter. The explanation mentions "for the purposes of this entry, parts of aeroplanes or helicopters shall include engines, engine parts, wireless transmission apparatus, wireless receivers, iron and steel washers and screws, ball and roller bearings and other parts falling within the said schedule". From the reading of the above explanation, it is clear that there are various items which are not classified in the tariff as "parts" but have other specific heading. Therefore, the basis of the reasoning adopted by the Commissioner that only parts of Chapter 88 g .....

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