Brand embossing and job-work manufacturing do not shift duty liability to principal units where independent workers are the actual manufacturers.

Brand embossing or engraving by itself did not amount to manufacture, and the remaining heat treatment, shot blasting and plating were done by independent job workers. On that legal position, any excisable manufacture, if undertaken at all, was attributable to the job workers as the actual manufacturers of the intermediate goods, not to the principal assessees who merely carried out branding or later packing-related activity. The duty demand against the assessees was therefore unsustainable despite their claim under Notification No. 8/2000-C.E., and the common demand was set aside.

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Issues: Whether the assessees were liable to duty when the goods were subjected to brand embossing and further job-work processes outside the rural area, despite claim of exemption under Notification No. 8/2000-C.E. dated 01.03.2000.

Analysis: The assessees were found to be carrying out only embossing or engraving of the brand name, which by itself did not amount to manufacture. The remaining processes of heat treatment, shot blasting and plating were carried out by independent job workers. Even assuming that those processes amounted to manufacture, the liability would arise on the job workers who were the actual manufacturers of the intermediate goods on job-work basis. On that legal position, the assessees could not be fastened with duty merely because the exemption notification was not available to them.

Conclusion: The duty demand against the assessees was not sustainable and the appeals of the assessees succeeded.

Final Conclusion: The common demand was set aside, the assessees obtained relief, and the Revenue's appeal did not survive.

Ratio Decidendi: Where excisable manufacture, if any, is undertaken by independent job workers, duty liability attaches to the job workers as manufacturers and not to the principal units that merely undertake branding or later packing activities.

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