Repeated excise duty on printed aluminium foils is impermissible when the goods remain within the same tariff identity.

Printing on duty-paid aluminium foils did not attract a fresh central excise levy where the foils had already suffered duty under the same tariff item. The item itself covered foils whether embossed, cut, perforated, coated, printed or backed, so printing did not change their tariff identity or move them into a new excise head. The governing principle was that duty cannot be recovered again on the same goods merely because they undergo a further process while remaining within the same tariff classification. On that basis, the demand, penalty, confiscation and redemption fine were unsustainable.

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Issues: Whether printing on duty-paid aluminium foils attracted fresh central excise duty under Item 27(c) of the Central Excise Tariff.

Analysis: The duty had already been discharged when the foils first entered Item 27(c), and the item itself covered foils whether or not embossed, cut, perforated, coated, printed or backed. The governing principle applied was that excise cannot be recovered again on the same goods merely because they undergo a further process if they remain within the same tariff item or sub-item. The separate reasoning also noted that the process of printing did not move the goods out of the tariff identity under which duty had already been paid, and that the issue was not one of entry into a new excise head but of repeated levy on the same head.

Conclusion: Printing duty-paid aluminium foils did not attract a second levy of central excise duty, and the demand, penalty, confiscation and redemption fine were unsustainable.

Final Conclusion: The assessee succeeded because the printed foils remained foils within the same tariff category after duty had already been paid once, so no further duty could be recovered on the same goods.

Ratio Decidendi: Where goods have already suffered duty under the same tariff item or sub-item, a further process that does not take them out of that tariff identity cannot justify a second levy of excise duty on those same goods.

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