Clarificatory exemption notification restored coverage for fly ash handling system parts, barring duty for the intervening period.

Parts of a Fly Ash Handling System were treated as eligible for concessional duty under Notification No. 5/98-CE because the later notification was interpreted as clarificatory. The text notes that the predecessor Notification No. 57/95-CE covered complete Pollution Control Systems as well as parts, and that parts were expressly restored to coverage by Notification No. 32/98-CE. On that basis, the intervening exclusion of parts was not viewed as creating a new denial of exemption, but as an interpretive gap later clarified. The practical effect was that duty could not be demanded on the excluded parts for the intervening period.

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Issues: Whether parts of a Fly Ash Handling System were entitled to concessional duty under Notification No. 5/98-CE dated 02.06.1998 for the relevant period.

Analysis: The coverage of the predecessor notification, Notification No. 57/95-CE dated 16.03.1995, had included complete Pollution Control Systems as well as parts thereof. The exclusion of parts under the later notification was treated as a matter of interpretation, and parts were expressly brought back into coverage by Notification No. 32/98-CE dated 21.09.1998. In these circumstances, the later notification was regarded as clarificatory rather than as granting a new exemption for the first time, and the intervening period could not be subjected to duty on the excluded parts.

Conclusion: The demand on parts of the Fly Ash Handling System was not sustainable and the assessee was entitled to the benefit of the notification.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a later exemption notification is clarificatory and restores coverage that existed under the predecessor notification, it operates retrospectively for the intervening period and no duty can be demanded on the excluded goods.

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