Section 4A valuation: package-level retail price declaration can support prima facie interim relief for multi-piece packs.

Section 4A valuation did not, on the period in dispute, automatically require a retail sale price declaration on each sachet inside a multi-piece package where the package itself carried the maximum retail price and stated that the individual sachets were not for loose sale. The Tribunal held that the Packaged Commodities Rules could not be bodily imported into Section 4A unless the statute expressly so provided, and that the then-applicable Section 4A(4) focused on goods removed without a declaration of retail sale price or with an incorrect declaration. On that basis, it found a prima facie case and granted conditional stay of the demand, subject to deposit.

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Issues: Whether the appellant made out a prima facie case for conditional stay of the impugned demand and whether, for the purpose of Section 4A, retail sale price was required to be declared on each sachet contained in the multi-piece package when the maximum retail price was declared on the package itself.

Analysis: The appellant's goods were sold in multi-piece packages bearing the maximum retail price with a declaration that the individual sachets were not intended for loose sale. The Tribunal noted that Section 4A(4) of the Central Excise Act, 1944, as applicable to the period in dispute, dealt with removal of goods without declaration of retail sale price on the packages or with incorrect declaration, and that the later amendment introducing ascertainment in the prescribed manner was not then in force. It further held that the reference in Section 4A to the standards-of-weights-and-measures regime was relevant for identifying goods requiring retail price-based valuation, but the requirements of the Packaged Commodities Rules could not be bodily imported into Section 4A so as to insist on separate retail price declarations on every unit contained in the package. On that basis, the Tribunal found a prima facie case for interim protection.

Conclusion: The appellant was entitled to conditional stay, subject to deposit of Rs. 7 lakhs, and the stay application was disposed of accordingly.

Final Conclusion: The interim demand was not enforced in full at this stage, and the matter was protected by a conditional stay pending final hearing.

Ratio Decidendi: For interim relief under Section 4A, where the retail sale price is declared on the package containing multiple units, the requirement in the Packaged Commodities Rules to declare price on each separately packable unit is not automatically transplanted into Section 4A unless the statute expressly so provides.

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