General statutory reference imports later amendments and keeps the appeal machinery workable under the jute cess rules.

A general reference in Rule 3 of the Jute Manufactures Cess Rules, 1976 to the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 and the rules made thereunder was treated as legislation by reference, so subsequent amendments to the referred Act would ordinarily apply. The Tribunal also noted that, even if the reference were treated as incorporation, the borrowed appeal machinery would still extend because the two enactments were in pari materia and supplemental, and the unamended procedure would become unworkable after the 1982 excise appellate changes. The appeals were therefore held maintainable before the Tribunal.

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Issues: Whether appeals arising under the Jute Manufactures Cess Rules, 1976 were maintainable before the Tribunal, and whether Rule 3 of those Rules incorporated the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 as it stood in 1976 or by general reference to that Act as amended from time to time.

Analysis: Rule 3 made a general reference to the provisions of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 and the rules made thereunder, including refund, and did not bodily lift any specific provision of that Act into the Jute Manufactures Cess Rules, 1976. A general reference of this kind is treated as legislation by reference, not legislation by incorporation, so the subsequent amendments to the referred Act would ordinarily apply. Even on the assumption that the provision amounted to incorporation, the borrowed provisions would still be attracted because the two enactments were held to be in pari materia and supplemental to each other, and because application of the unamended appeal machinery would render the scheme unworkable after the 1982 changes in the excise appellate hierarchy.

Conclusion: The appeals were held maintainable before the Tribunal, and the objection to maintainability failed.

Ratio Decidendi: A general statutory reference to another enactment imports that law as amended from time to time; and even where incorporation is suggested, later amendments will apply where the enactments are in pari materia, supplemental, or otherwise the unamended provision would be unworkable.

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