Excise exemption for paper turns on aggregation of clearances across factories, with proviso conditions applied separately to each unit.

Under a revised excise exemption notification for paper, eligibility for concessional duty depended on aggregating the clearances of all factories of the manufacturer in the preceding financial year within the prescribed limits. The proviso conditions-such as the factory not having an attached bamboo or wood pulp plant and manufacturing paper from pulp-applied separately to the factory claiming the concession. The text did not permit reading in a further restriction limiting aggregation only to factories using unconventional raw material. On a plain construction, the clearances from both factories had to be added together, so the Bhopal factory could not exclude the Rayagada clearances and the concession claim failed.

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Issues: Whether, under the revised excise exemption notification for paper, the clearances of all factories of the manufacturer had to be aggregated for determining eligibility for concessional duty, and whether the factory at Bhopal could exclude the clearances of the factory at Rayagada because Rayagada had an attached bamboo and wood pulp plant.

Analysis: The notification granted concessional duty only if the total clearances of all varieties of paper from one or more factories in the preceding financial year fell within the prescribed limits and if the concerned factory satisfied the stated conditions that it did not have an attached plant for making bamboo or wood pulp and manufactured paper out of pulp. The language did not permit reading into the notification any further restriction limiting aggregation only to factories using unconventional raw material. On a plain reading, the clearances from both factories had to be added together for deciding eligibility, while the proviso conditions operated separately on the individual factory claiming the concession. The notification could not be rewritten by supplying words that were not there, and fiscal exemption provisions had to be construed according to their text.

Conclusion: The clearances of both factories were required to be aggregated, the Bhopal factory alone was not entitled to exclude the Rayagada clearances, and the claim for concessional excise duty failed.

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