Job-work twisting of copper wires is not manufacture unless it creates a new marketable commodity and separate excisable product.

Twisting copper wires in job-work did not constitute manufacture under Section 2(f) because the process did not create a new, commercially distinct and marketable commodity. The wires remained copper conductors, and the Department failed to show that twisting produced a separate excisable product under Tariff Item No. 33-B. As the activity was only an intermediate step in producing insulated copper wires, duty could not be fastened on the job-worker when the final dutiable product was manufactured and assessed in the hands of the principal manufacturer. The demand was therefore unsustainable, and the assessment and revisional orders were set aside with consequential refund relief.

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Issues: Whether twisting copper wires as job-work amounted to manufacture of excisable goods liable to duty under Tariff Item No. 33-B of the First Schedule to the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944.

Analysis: Manufacture under Section 2(f) requires emergence of a new commercially distinct commodity having its own character, use and name, or a process incidental or ancillary to completion of a manufactured product. The twisted wires remained copper conductors and the Department did not establish that the process of twisting produced a new and separate marketable commodity. The activity was only an intermediate step in the manufacture of insulated copper wires, which were ultimately manufactured and dutiable in the hands of the principal manufacturer. In the absence of a new excisable product arising from the petitioners' process, liability to duty could not be fastened on them.

Conclusion: The twisting job-work did not amount to manufacture of excisable goods, and the duty demand against the petitioners was not sustainable.

Final Conclusion: The assessment orders and the revisional order were set aside and the petitioners were granted consequential refund relief.

Ratio Decidendi: A process carried out on goods does not amount to manufacture unless it brings into existence a new commercially distinct and marketable commodity; an intermediate stage in the production of the final dutiable product is not separately exigible absent such transformation.

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