Optional after-sales service charges excluded from excise assessable value where separately charged and covered by binding precedent.

Optional warranty and after-sales service charges collected separately from buyers were held not includible in the assessable value for central excise valuation, because the charges were optional, separately billed, and already covered by binding precedent in the assessee's own earlier period. Applying that precedent under Section 4A of the Central Excise Act, 1944, the Tribunal declined to take a different view and rejected the Revenue's challenge. The operative effect was that such separately charged post-sale service amounts were excluded from assessable value.

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Issues: Whether optional warranty / after-sales service charges collected separately from buyers were includible in the assessable value for central excise purposes.

Analysis: The Tribunal noted that the controversy had already been decided in the assessee's own case for an earlier period. The earlier decision held that after-sales service charges, being optional and separately charged, were not includible in valuation while determining the assessable value under Section 4A of the Central Excise Act, 1944. Following that binding precedent, and finding no merit in the Revenue's challenge, the Tribunal saw no reason to take a different view.

Conclusion: The optional warranty / after-sales service charges were not includible in the assessable value, and the Revenue's appeal failed.

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