Assessable value includes printing charges where pre-clearance processing enhances excisable goods, even if it is not manufacture.

Printing undertaken on self-adhesive tapes before clearance, to meet customer requirements, was treated as a value-enhancing process for central excise valuation. Because the process improved the goods and increased their value, the separately recovered printing and development charges formed part of the assessable value even though the activity did not amount to manufacture. The Tribunal therefore upheld inclusion of those charges in valuation and rejected the challenge to that treatment.

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Issues: Whether the amount recovered towards printing and development charges for self-adhesive tapes was includible in the assessable value for central excise purposes.

Analysis: The goods were cleared after printing was done to suit customer requirements. The printing process improved the tapes and enhanced their value before clearance. Following earlier Tribunal decisions holding that post-manufacture processes which enrich the value of goods are relevant to valuation, the amount separately recovered for printing was treated as part of the assessable value.

Conclusion: The printing charges were correctly included in the assessable value, and the appeal was not liable to succeed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a process carried out before clearance enhances the value of excisable goods, the amount recovered for that process forms part of the assessable value even if the process is not manufacture.

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