Marketability is essential for excise duty: non-marketable intermediate sliver was held not liable to duty.

Carded and gilled sliver, an intermediate product in woollen yarn manufacture, was held not to be excisable goods because marketability is an essential attribute of goods under the excise charging provision. The material showed the sliver was loose, incohesive, brittle, not ordinarily bought or sold, not recognised in trade as a commodity, and incapable of ordinary packing or transport without damage. On that basis, no excise duty could be levied on it. The court found it unnecessary to decide the matter on the amended removal fiction under the rules.

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Issues: Whether carded and gilled sliver, an intermediate product in the manufacture of woollen yarn, was marketable goods and therefore liable to excise duty.

Analysis: Excise duty is attracted only if the article answers the description of goods under the charging provision. The material on record showed that the sliver was a loose, incohesive and brittle intermediate product, not ordinarily bought or sold in the market, not known to trade as a commodity, and incapable of being packed or transported in the ordinary course without damage. The absence of marketability meant that it could not be treated as excisable goods merely because it emerged at an intermediate stage of manufacture. The Court therefore found it unnecessary to decide the matter on the amended removal fiction under the rules.

Conclusion: The sliver was not excisable goods and no excise duty could be levied on it; the petitioners succeeded.

Ratio Decidendi: Marketability is an essential attribute of excisable goods, and an intermediate product that is not marketable cannot be subjected to excise duty.

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