Tariff coverage of loudspeakers in enclosures: mere mounting of duty-paid speakers is not manufacture or a second duty levy.

Where the tariff entry for loudspeakers covered goods "whether or not mounted in their enclosures," mounting duty-paid speakers in wooden or plastic enclosures did not create a new excisable commodity. The activity was treated as mere fitting of an existing product into an enclosure, not a process amounting to manufacture. As the speakers remained the same commodity within the scope of the tariff description, no second levy of duty could be sustained on the mounted form. The demand was rejected and the assessee succeeded.

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Issues: Whether mounting duty-paid speakers in wooden or plastic enclosures brings into existence a new excisable commodity and attracts further duty under Tariff Heading 85.18.

Analysis: The tariff entry expressly covered loudspeakers "whether or not mounted in their enclosures". The speakers were already duty paid, and the activity undertaken was only mounting them in enclosures without creating a distinct new commodity. The tariff description was treated as material in determining the scope of levy, and the result followed the same principle that where the entry itself encompasses the finished form, no separate manufacture is made out merely by mounting or fitting the goods in an enclosure.

Conclusion: The activity did not amount to manufacture and no further duty was leviable on the speakers mounted in enclosures; the issue was decided in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The appeal succeeded and the demand based on treating the mounted speakers as a new excisable product could not be sustained.

Ratio Decidendi: When a tariff entry covers goods "whether or not mounted in their enclosures", mere mounting of duty-paid goods in an enclosure does not constitute manufacture or justify a second levy of duty.

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