TMI Blog2003 (6) TMI 48X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... pomac and Eprex. Both are life saving medicaments. The medicaments when shipped by the supplier abroad were packs intended for retail sale. Several such packs were placed in bulk packing with shippers for transportation. In compliance with the provisions of Rule 32 of the Drugs Cosmetics Rules, and Rule 33 of the Standards of Weights Measures (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 1977, the importer, after obtaining permission from the Customs authorities, removed the medicaments to its warehouse at Vakola and there affixed on each retail pack a sticker containing information relating to the goods. The sticker in the case of Topomac mentioned the maximum retail price. Such information as the name of the supplier, quantity, manufacturing date etc. were placed by means of stickers on cardboard boxes into which it was repacked, each box containing 20 packets of 10 tablets each. In the case of the other commodity, the sticker contained details of the name and address of the manufacturer, number of syringes in each pack, the name of the product with the potency and name and address of the marketing company. In each case a hologram was also affixed on the retail pack in order to authenticate ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ordance with the language employed in the provisions and the Courts cannot help the draftsman by favourable construction. By applying this principle, labelling by itself would not amount to manufacture. For the note to be attracted, labelling and relabelling of container should be accompanied either by repacking from bulk pack to retail pack or by any other treatment to render the product marketable. Labelling or relabelling cannot by itself amount to manufacture, assuming that the process carried out by the importers is labelling. There is in fact no labelling. The packages in which the goods were packed when they arrived themselves contained prominently the information relating to details of the goods, quantity, date or year of manufacture etc. All that was done was to put a sticker on the wrapper of the chocolates imported by Nestle India Ltd. or on the medicaments imported by Johnson Johnson Ltd. bearing the name and address of the importer and maximum retail price as required by Rule 33 of the 1997 Rules. This does not amount to labelling. In any event, it is not any and all labelling that is deemed by the notes to be manufacture, but only that labelling which renders the pr ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... r vendor or packer, net weight and number of measure, volume of content, distinctive batch and code number, the month and year of manufacture and packing. Explanation 1 to the Rule says that the term "label" means "a display, marked graphic, printed, perforated, stenciled, embossed, stamped matter upon the container, cover, lid or crown of any food package." 11.Explanation 1 is a fairly precise definition of the term "label", and, in the absence of a definition in the Excise Tariff, we think it appropriate to adopt this definition, to the chocolates under consideration by us. The importer affixed to the chocolates a sticker containing considerable information that was not present on them when they were imported. In our view, the sticker that was put on them was, clearly, a label. The product, thus, had fixed on it a label in addition to whatever it contained on importation. Therefore, this activity that was undertaken was either labelling, if the chocolates did not earlier have a label, or relabelling, if what they contained is to be considered a label. The same position would apply in the case of the other goods. The information that was contained in the stickers that were affix ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s are a deeming provision, and must be strictly construed. This is what has been done in Ammonia Supply Co., the ratio of which has been applied in a number of other decisions of this Tribunal. We have therefore to see whether the labelling undertaken by either of these appellants was accompanied by repacking from bulk pack to retail packs. The notices that were issued to the appellants did not allege that the goods were repacked from bulk packs to retail packs, but sought to apply the notes solely on the ground of labelling. In the orders, too, there is no attempt to say that the goods were repacked from bulk to retail. That alone should be sufficient to allow the appeals. However, the Departmental Representative raises this issue. The chocolates imported by Nestle India Ltd. were not repacked by their supplier. They were kept in large cartons, referred to as shippers, for the transportation. On their arrival in India, they were removed from the shippers. There was, clearly, no packing by their supplier from retail to bulk; equally clearly, it follows that there could not have been repacking from bulk to retail by this appellant. 14.The goods imported by Johnson Johnson Ltd. c ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ne is to take the retail pack out of the wholesale pack in which it has been put. Conversion from bulk pack to retail pack would however require such repacking. The quantities of the commodity which are in the bulk pack would not be in any kind of packing suitable for sale at any commercial level and thus would have to be either repacked before sale or sold without any packing. 17.Both Eprex and Topomac are already packed in retail packs. The carton containing the refill syringes of 0.5 ml, appears to us, is a retail packing as is the packs containing 25 tablets of Topomac. If the vials of Eprex injection were to be removed from the retail packing of six in which they were placed before manufacture, and each time put into a bulk pack, which was sent to the appellant, what it received would be a bulk pack. If this appellant thereafter took out the vials and repacked them into boxes of six or any other number, it would have repacked them. This appellant received goods which were in retail packing and continued to retain them in such retail packing. Clearly, keeping the cartons containing Eprex injections in a shipper for the purpose of transporting them would not be converting reta ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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