Brand name use and SSI exemption: branded clearances and fully exempt goods must be excluded from aggregate value computation.

Use of even part of another person's brand name or trade name, when it indicates a trade connection, is sufficient to deny small scale exemption. Goods cleared from the Pollachi unit under the composite brand ROOTS HAKO, being associated with foreign collaborators, were therefore not entitled to SSI benefit. For aggregate clearance-value computation under Notification No. 8/98-CE, clearances bearing another person's brand name and fully exempt clearances had to be excluded. The values of the Pollachi branded goods and the exempt flippers were accordingly required to be left out, and the impugned order was held unsustainable.

---

---

Issues: Whether goods cleared from the Pollachi unit, bearing the brand names of foreign collaborators, were ineligible for small scale exemption and whether their value, along with the value of fully exempt flippers, had to be excluded while computing the aggregate clearance value for exemption eligibility under Notification No. 8/98-CE.

Analysis: The brand name used by the appellants combined the names ROOTS and HAKO, both belonging to their collaborators. Use of even part of another's brand name or trade name, where it indicates a trade connection, is sufficient to deny small scale exemption. The notification excludes clearances bearing the brand name or trade name of another person, as well as fully exempt clearances, from the aggregate value computation. Since the Pollachi goods were branded with the collaborators' names and duty had been paid on those clearances, the values of such goods and the exempt flippers were required to be excluded from the SSI computation.

Conclusion: The goods from the Pollachi unit were not entitled to small scale exemption, but their value and the value of exempt flippers were to be excluded while determining eligibility under the notification; the impugned order was unsustainable.

---