Printed cartons are not products of the printing industry where printing is incidental to carton manufacture.

Printed cartons were not treated as products of the printing industry merely because they bore printed matter. The controlling test was whether the article was brought into existence by the printing process itself; here, the manufacture depended on cutting, creasing, shaping and pasting cardboard into cartons, so the essential character remained that of cartons. The distinction previously drawn for printed aluminium labels did not apply on these facts. The exemption claim based on classification as a printing-industry product therefore failed, and the dispute was resolved in favour of the revenue.

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Issues: Whether printed cartons manufactured by the respondent were products of the printing industry and entitled to exemption as such.

Analysis: The controlling test was whether the printed article could be regarded as a product brought into existence by the printing industry itself. Printed cartons were held to remain cartons, since the manufacturing process involved cutting, creasing, shaping and pasting cardboard into cartons, and mere fancy printing did not convert them into products of the printing industry. The earlier distinction drawn for printed aluminium labels did not apply, because the article in dispute here was a carton.

Conclusion: The printed cartons were not products of the printing industry and were not entitled to treatment on that basis. The appeal was allowed and the order under appeal was reversed.

Final Conclusion: The exemption claim based on printing industry classification failed, and the dispute was resolved in favour of the revenue.

Ratio Decidendi: A carton does not become a product of the printing industry merely because it bears printing; where the article remains a carton and its manufacture depends on conversion of cardboard into a carton, it is not classified as a product of printing industry.

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