Exemption notification interpreted strictly: similar brand names do not amount to the same trade mark, and writ relief was maintainable.

A writ challenge to an excise order was maintainable where the dispute turned on construction of the exemption notification and not on controverted facts; the existence of an appellate remedy did not bar Article 226 relief, and the patent misconstruction of the notification justified intervention. On merits, aerated waters sold under different brand names, even if allegedly deceptively similar or derived from the same source, did not amount to manufacture under the same trade mark or brand name. The authority could not import a notion of similarity into a notification confined to identical marks, so the exemption was available and the duty and penalties could not be sustained.

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Issues: (i) Whether the writ petitions were not maintainable for failure to exhaust the statutory remedies under the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944. (ii) Whether aerated waters sold under different but allegedly deceptively similar brand names could be treated as "common trade mark aerated waters" so as to deny exemption under Notification No. 148/82-C.E. dated 22.4.1982.

Issue (i): Whether the writ petitions were not maintainable for failure to exhaust the statutory remedies under the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944.

Analysis: The dispute turned on the interpretation of the notification and did not require investigation of controverted facts. Availability of appeal or reference under the excise law was not an absolute bar to writ jurisdiction, particularly where the impugned order disclosed patent misconstruction and was liable to correction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

Conclusion: The writ petitions were maintainable and the objection based on alternate remedy failed.

Issue (ii): Whether aerated waters sold under different but allegedly deceptively similar brand names could be treated as "common trade mark aerated waters" so as to deny exemption under Notification No. 148/82-C.E. dated 22.4.1982.

Analysis: The notification required manufacture and sale under the same trade mark or brand name in more than one factory. Different brand names, even if said to be similar or derived from the same deity, were not the same trade mark or brand name. The authority below had read into the notification a concept of similarity that was not there, and the use of different brand names kept the goods outside the expression "common trade mark aerated waters".

Conclusion: The petitioners were entitled to the exemption and the levy of duty and penalties could not be sustained.

Final Conclusion: The impugned excise order was quashed and the writ petitions succeeded.

Ratio Decidendi: Where an exemption notification is confined to goods manufactured under the same trade mark or brand name, it cannot be extended to goods sold under merely similar or deceptively similar marks; a patent misconstruction of the notification justifies writ interference notwithstanding an available statutory appeal.

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