Deductibility of statutory taxes from wholesale price affirmed for assessable value under central excise valuation.

Statutory levies recoverable as separate taxes and not forming part of manufacturing value were deductible from the wholesale price in computing assessable value under Section 4 of the Central Excises & Salt Act. The dispute concerned sales-tax, additional sales-tax, surcharge on sales-tax, turn-over tax and octroi/entry tax; the revenue accepted that these amounts did not enter assessable value and could not be excluded merely because they were not claimed under a particular head. The impugned order was therefore quashed to the extent it denied deduction of those taxes.

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Issues: Whether sales-tax, additional sales-tax, surcharge on sales-tax, turn-over tax and octroi/entry tax were deductible from the wholesale price while computing the assessable value under Section 4 of the Central Excises & Salt Act.

Analysis: The dispute was confined to the deductibility of the listed taxes in the assessable value. The revenue accepted that these taxes did not form part of the assessable value and that deduction could not be denied merely because they were not claimed under the precise head. The order under challenge was therefore examined only to that extent.

Conclusion: The petitioner was entitled to deduct sales-tax, additional sales-tax, surcharge on sales-tax, turn-over tax and octroi/entry tax while computing the assessable value, and the impugned order was quashed to that extent.

Ratio Decidendi: Taxes of the kind that are recoverable as statutory levies and not part of the value of manufacture are deductible from the wholesale price when determining assessable value under Section 4 of the Central Excises & Salt Act.

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