Non-marketable crude PVC articles were clarified as outside excise duty for the goods actually in issue.

The earlier Supreme Court ruling was clarified to cover the crude PVC articles actually described in the assessment proceedings, whether called films or sheets. The Court stated that the prior decision had proceeded on the basis of those goods and had held the crude commodity to be non-marketable; no separate issue distinguishing films from sheets had been decided. The clarification confined the judgment to the controversy as presented before the assessing and appellate authorities, while leaving the department free to raise contentions in future assessments. As a result, the crude articles in issue were not liable to excise duty.

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Issues: Whether the earlier judgment covered the crude PVC articles described in the assessment proceedings as films or sheets and whether such goods were liable to excise duty.

Analysis: The controversy before the Court arose out of the same show cause notice and assessment proceedings in which the assessee's product had been described as crude PVC films/sheets. The earlier decision had proceeded on that basis and had held that the crude commodity was not marketable. The Court clarified that the concluding observation in the earlier judgment was intended to cover the goods actually in issue before the assessing and appellate authorities, and that no distinction between films and sheets had been adjudicated as a separate question. The Court further clarified that the judgment should be confined to the controversy as it had come before the Court, without foreclosing the department's right to raise contentions in future assessments.

Conclusion: The crude articles produced by the assessee and in issue in the assessment proceedings, whether described as films or sheets, were not assessable to excise duty.

Final Conclusion: The earlier decision was clarified to apply to the crude PVC articles covered by the assessment proceedings, and the assessee's liability to excise duty on those goods was negated.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the goods covered by the assessment proceedings are found to be non-marketable crude articles, they are not excisable, and the operative effect of the judgment extends to the goods actually in issue, irrespective of nomenclature used in the proceedings.

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