Animal feed supplements are not medicines and may fall within the broader animal feed exemption.

Vitamin-based preparations used to supplement animal and poultry feed were held not to be patent or proprietary medicines because they were marketed and used as feed supplements, not as products for treating or preventing disease; they therefore fell under the residuary tariff entry. The exemption for animal feed under Notification No. 55/75 was also held to cover such preparations, because the later amendment adding animal feed supplements and concentrates was treated as clarificatory, confirming that nutritionally enhancing supplements were already within the broader expression animal feed. The classification under the medicine entry was set aside and exemption and refund relief followed.

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Issues: (i) Whether the vitamin-based preparations used for supplementing animal and poultry feed were classifiable under Tariff Item 14(E) as patent or proprietary medicines, or under Tariff Item 68 as residuary goods; (ii) whether such preparations were entitled, prior to the amending notification, to exemption as animal feed under Notification No. 55/75.

Issue (i): Whether the vitamin-based preparations used for supplementing animal and poultry feed were classifiable under Tariff Item 14(E) as patent or proprietary medicines, or under Tariff Item 68 as residuary goods.

Analysis: The preparations were intended to supplement animal feed and improve nutritional value. They were traded and purchased as animal feed supplements and not as medicines for treatment or prevention of ailments. A product does not become a medicine merely because better nourishment may generally improve resistance to ailments. On that reasoning, the goods did not answer the description of patent or proprietary medicines.

Conclusion: The goods were not classifiable under Tariff Item 14(E) and fell under Tariff Item 68.

Issue (ii): Whether such preparations were entitled, prior to the amending notification, to exemption as animal feed under Notification No. 55/75.

Analysis: The original exemption covered animal feed including compound livestock feed. The later amendment expressly added animal feed supplements and animal feed concentrates, but that amendment was treated as clarificatory rather than as introducing a new category. Products generally added to animal feed to improve nourishment were held to fall within the generic expression animal feed even before the amendment.

Conclusion: The preparations were entitled to exemption under Notification No. 55/75 even before the amendment.

Final Conclusion: The petition succeeded, the classification under Tariff Item 14(E) was set aside, and the petitioners were held entitled to exemption and refund relief.

Ratio Decidendi: A nutrient supplement used for animal or poultry feed is not a medicine merely because it may improve resistance to ailments, and a clarificatory amendment expressly adding animal feed supplements confirms that such supplements were already encompassed by the broader exemption for animal feed.

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