Commr. of Cen. Exc. Ahmedabad v. M/s Urmin Products P. Ltd. and Others

Judgment

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal Nos. 10159- 10161 of 2010. From the Judgment and Order dated 25.03.2010 of the Customs Excise & Service Tax Appellate Tribunal, West Zonal Bench, Ahmedabad in Appeal No. E/426, 427 and 428 of 2008. With Civil Appeal Nos. 6519 of 2023, 2469 of 2020, 6521, 6522, 6523-24 of 2023, 959 of 2019, 6538-42, 6531-37, 6525, 6526, 6527, 6528, 6529, 6530 of 2023, 5146 of 2015 and 3596 of 2023. Appearances: S K Bagaria, Vivek Kohli, Sr. Advs., B. Krishna Prasad, Ms. Sheena Taqui, Ms. Akansha Saini, Ajit K Sinha, Shiv Vinayak Gupta, Mrs. Bina Gupta, Mrs. Nisha Bagchi, Mukesh Kumar Maroria, Shetty Uday Kumar Sagar, Ms. Aakansha Kaul, S.K. Singhania, H.R. Rao, Ajay Choudhary, Kavin Gulati, Aditya Bhattacharya, Bhanu Gupta, Kishan Datta, A.R. Madhav Rao, A. Mukunda Rao, Siddhant Buxy, M.P. Vinod, Sunil Tyagi, Ashwani Sharma, Nalin Talwar, Sandeep Buraria, Archit Upadhayay, Ms. Bhavya Bhatia, Kumar Ajit Singh, Rupesh Kumar, Aditya Kumar, Ms. Pankhuri Shrivastava, Ms. Neelam Sharma, Aryaman Sharma, Dr. Seema Jain, Vimlesh Kumar, A.K. Jain, Advs. for the appearing parties. JUDGMENT / ORDER OF THE SUPREME COURT JUDGMENT ARAVIND KUMAR, J.

1Delay condoned on 23.08.2023.

2These appeals are divided into seven (7) groups for convenience, and facts of each group are enumerated under the respective groups whereunder questions or points for determination have been formulated and analysed thereunder. For the purpose of convenience, the details of the judgment with reference to each group and details thereof are enumerated hereinbelow in the following table no. 1: TABLE 1 GROUP NUMBER. CONTENT – DETAILS PAGE NUMBER FROM TO 1. Commissioner Of Central Excise Ahmedabad v. M/S Urmin Products and Ors. [ C. A. No. 10159 – 10161 of 2010] i. Brief Facts 17 20 ii. Submissions of Parties 20 29 iii. Discussion and Finding 29 49 PRODUCTS P. LTD. AND OTHERS 2. Commissioner Of Central Excise, Chandigarh v. M/S. Flakes-N-Flavourz [ C. A. 5146 of 2015] i. Brief Facts 50 51 ii. Submissions of Parties 51 55 iii. Discussion and Findings 56 72

3Commissioner Of Central Goods and Service Tax Excise and Customs Bhopal v. Kaipan Masala Pvt. Ltd. [ Diary No. 44912 of 2019; Diary No. 6888 of 2020] i. Brief Facts 73 78 ii. Submissions of Parties 78 81 iii. Discussion and Findings 81 86

4M/S Dharampal Premchand Ltd. V. Commissioner of Central Excise [ C.A. No. 2469 of 2020 along with Diary No. (s) 3492, 3487, 2810, 3484, 3513, 3536, 3544, 3545, 3547 of 2020.] i. Brief Facts 86 90 ii. Submissions of Parties 90 94 iii. Discussion and Findings 95

5Commissioner of Central Goods and Service Tax v. M/S Tej Ram Dharam Paul [C.A. No. 3596 of 2023] i. Brief Facts ii. Submissions of Parties iii. Discussion and Findings

6Commissioner Of Central Excise and Service Tax Meerut V. M/S Som Pan Products Pvt. Ltd. [D.No.14581 of 2019] i. Brief Facts ii. Submissions of Parties iii. Discussion and Findings

7Commissioner of Central Excise & ST Alwar v. Tara Chand Naresh Chand [C.A. No.959 of 2019] i. Brief Facts ii. Submissions of Parties iii. Discuss and Findings ORDER Page 143-144 3. On behalf of the Revenue in the various groups of matters before this Court, we have heard: - (1) Mr. N. Venkataraman, learned Additional Solicitor General of India, (2) Ms. Nisha Bagchi, learned standing counsel. 4. On behalf of the assessee, we have heard: - (1) Mr. S.K. Bagaria and Mr. Vivek Kohli, learned Senior Counsel, (2) Mr. A.R. Madhav Rao, Mr. Rupesh Kumar and Ms. Seema Jain, learned counsel. 5. The Appellants in Group No. (s) 1,2,3,5,6 and 7, and the Respondents in Group No.4, namely the ‘Commissioner of Central Excise’ are hereinafter referred to as “Revenue”. The Appellants in Group No.4 and the respective respondents in Group No. (s) 1,2,3,5,6 and 7, are hereinafter referred to as “Assessee” for the sake of convenience and brevity. 6. For ease of reference, the following table no.

2 of nomenclatures/ abbreviations is made available below. TABLE 2 Sr. No. Nomenclature/ Abbreviation Particulars / Meaning 1. “BIS” Bureau of Indian Standards 2. “CBIC” Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs 3. “CETA” Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985 4. “CE ACT’ Central Excise Act, 1944 5. “CET SH” Central Excise Tariff Sub-Heading 6. “CESTAT” Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal 7. “CTPM” Chewing Tobacco and Unmanufactured Tobacco Packing Machines (Capacity Determination and Collection of Duty) Rules, 2010

8“CRCL” Central Revenue Control Laboratory

9“OIA” Order-In-Appeal

10“OIO” Order-In-Original

11“CT” Chewing Tobacco

12“ZST” Zarda/Jarda Scented Tobacco PRODUCTS P. LTD. AND OTHERS [ARAVIND KUMAR, J.] 7. The learned advocates appearing for the parties have placed reliance and referred to various statutory provisions, relevant chapters of CE Act, CETA, CE Rules, CTPM Rules, and various relevant notifi cations/circulars issued from time to time by the respective departments/ministry. For clarity and ease of reference we have catalogued the same herein in table no.3 below: TABLE 3 I. TARIFF AND NOTIFICATIONS RELATING TO THE PERIOD 2005-2006 ISSUED UNDER CE ACT 1. Chapter 24 of the Central Excise Tariff in 2004-05 (6 Digit Code). 2. Notifi cation No. 13/2002 – CE (NT) dated 01.03.2002 under Section 4A prescribing abatement from MRP for arriving at assessable value. 3. Notifi cation 10/2003 – CE (NT) dated 01.03.2003 under Section 4A prescribing abatement of 50% for all goods under 2404.41. 4. Chapter 24 of the Central Excise Tariff in 2005-06 (8 Digit Code) 5.

Circular 808/05/2005- CX dated 25.02.2005 in regard to introduction of 8-digit tariff from 6-digit tariff in vogue earlier. 6. Notifi cation 2/2006 – CE (NT) dated 01.03.2006 under Section 4A. 7. Notifi cation 16/2006 – CE (NT) dated 11.07.2006 under Section 4A. II. TARIFF AND NOTIFICATIONS BETWEEN THE YEARS 2010-2015 ISSUED UNDER THE CE ACT 1. Notifi cation: 10/2010- C.E. (N.T.) dated 27-Feb-2010 notifying Unmanufactured Tobacco and Chewing Tobacco under Section 3A. 2. Chewing Tobacco and Unmanufactured Tobacco Packing Machines (Capacity Determination and Collection of Duty) Rules, 2010 Notifi cation: 11/2010-C.E. (N.T.) dated 27-Feb-2010 3. Notifi cation: 16/2010 – CE. Dated 27.02.2010 prescribing rate for branded unmanufactured tobacco and chewing tobacco. 4. Notifi cation: 16/2010 – CE. Dated 27.02.2010 prescribing rate for branded unmanufactured tobacco and chewing tobacco. 5. Notifi cation: 17/2010 – CE (NT) dated 13.04.2010- Notifi es Jarda scented tobacco under Section 3A. 6.

Notifi cation 18/2010 – CE (NT) dated 13.04.2010 – Prescribing the capacity deemed to have been produced for chewing tobacco (including Filter Khaini), Unmanufactured Tobacco and Jarda Scented Tobacco. 7. Notifi cation: 19/2010- C.E. dated 13.04.2010 – prescribing the rate for Chewing Tobacco, Unmanufactured Tobacco and Filter Khaini. 8. Notifi cation: 14/2012 – CE Dated 14.03.2012 prescribing the new rate for Chewing Tobacco, Unmanufactured Tobacco and Filter Khaini. 9. Notifi cation: 2/2014 – C.E. dated 24.01.2014 – prescribing the new rate for Chewing Tobacco, Unmanufactured Tobacco and Filter Khaini. 10. Notifi cation: 17/2014 – C.E. dated 11.07.2014 – Prescribing the new rate for chewing tobacco, unmanufactured tobacco and fi lter khaini. 8. It would be apt and appropriate to extract Section 11A as it stood in 1980, and as it stood after the amendment brought in 2000 and by Act 10 of 2000 (w.e.f.

17.11.1980) and subsequent substitution by Act 8 of 2011, as it would have a direct bearing on the various batch of appeals before us. They read as under: PRODUCTS P. LTD. AND OTHERS [ARAVIND KUMAR, J.] Section 11A.