Common parlance controls tariff classification, so an insulating glass product was held outside the glassware entry.

Tariff classification under Item 23A(4) depended on the ordinary commercial meaning of "glass" and "glassware", not a purely scientific description that would distort the entry. A processed insulating product made from broken glass and chemicals, sold as a hardware insulation material, could not be treated as glassware or as blocks or bricks covered by the tariff item. On that construction, the product was not exigible to excise duty under Item 23A(4), and the impugned classification orders were unsustainable.

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Issues: Whether the petitioners' product, Cell-O-Therm, was classifiable as "glass" or "glassware" under Item 23A(4) of the First Schedule to the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 and therefore liable to excise duty.

Analysis: The product was manufactured from broken glass mixed with chemicals and processed into rigid insulating blocks. For tariff classification, the terms "glass" and "glassware" had to be understood in their ordinary and common parlance, not in their extreme scientific sense. On that approach, a specialised cellular product used as insulation material and sold in the hardware market could not be treated as glassware. Even if the product could scientifically be described as a type of glass, Item 23A did not extend to blocks or bricks of such processed material, and the adjudicating authorities had adopted an unsustainable and strained construction of the entry.

Conclusion: Cell-O-Therm was not glass or glassware under Item 23A(4) and was not exigible to excise duty under that entry.

Final Conclusion: The impugned classification orders were unsustainable, and the writ petition succeeded with consequential relief.

Ratio Decidendi: In fiscal tariff entries using ordinary commercial expressions, classification must be determined by common parlance and not by a purely scientific description where the scientific sense would distort the statutory entry.

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