Item-wise eligibility under incentive notifications must be tested separately; prior clearances of another item cannot cure disqualification.

Eligibility for excess production incentive rebate under Notification No. 116/84 had to be tested item-wise, because each specified good and each serial number in the Table operated separately. The notification's exclusion clause created two independent categories of ineligible factories, linked by the disjunctive "or", so clearances of one specified item could not satisfy the condition for another item. As the goods for which rebate was claimed were first cleared only after 1 April 1981, the relevant exclusion applied. The rebate claim was therefore barred under condition B IV(a), and no relief was available.

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Issues: Whether the appellants were entitled to excess production incentive rebate under Notification No. 116/84 despite first clearances of the relevant specified goods taking place after 1 April 1981, and whether clearances of another specified item under a different serial number could satisfy the notification condition.

Analysis: The notification created two independent categories of factories in which no credit was allowable, separated by a semicolon and the disjunctive "or". The first category covered factories from which clearances of the specified goods were made for the first time on or after 1 April 1981. The second category covered factories from which no clearances of specified goods had been effected during the relevant financial years. The clearances had to be examined with reference to each specified good and each serial number in the Table separately. Since the goods for which rebate was claimed were first cleared only in July 1981, the first category applied. Prior clearances of a different specified item under another serial number could not satisfy the condition for the item in question.

Conclusion: The rebate claim was correctly held to be barred by condition B IV(a) of Notification No. 116/84, and the appellants were not entitled to relief.

Ratio Decidendi: Where an exemption or incentive notification requires separate computation of specified goods by serial number, eligibility must be tested item-wise, and a disjunctive exclusion clause applies independently to the relevant item.

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