1986 (1) TMI 239

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....authorisedly without payment of the duty and that they did not take the required Central Excise Licence and committed other attendant breaches of the rules. He has ordered the appellants to pay the additional excise duty and handloom cess amounting to Rs.1,67,365.58, imposed on them a penalty of Rs. 10,000/-; confiscated certain quantities of processed fabrics seized from the premises of the appellants and appropriated the security deposit of Rs. 1,500/- towards fine in lieu of confiscation of the said fabrics. The appellants are in appeal before us against the said order. 2. During the hearing before us, the appellants admitted that the appliance used by them was a machine. However, they maintained that the process which they under....

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....dings one year later, in the reply of the appellants to the show cause notice. The learned representative of the department relied on the Supreme Court judgment in the case of M/s. Empire Industries Ltd. & others v. Union of India and others, 1985 (20) E.L.T. 179 (S.C.). particularly paragraph 31 thereof, and maintained that the curing process of the appellants with the help of the machine was a finishing process and had attracted duty. 4. We have carefully considered the matter. It is common ground that the 'man made fabrics' or saries received by the appellants from customers had been screen printed on cold tables. The question is whether the printing process was already complete or not. The answer to this question should depend o....

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....reme Court in case M/s. Empire Industries Ltd. (supra) : "Whatever may be the operation, it is the effect of the operation on the commodity that is material for the purpose of determining whether the operation constitutes such a process which will be part of 'manufacture'. Any process or processes creating something else having distinctive name, character and use would be manufacture." We agree with the Collector that the heat treatment process given to the fabrics by the appellants was a finishing process and was covered by the expression "any other process" occurring in Section 2(f)(vii) of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944. Such processing, therefore, amounted to manufacture. It has already been settled by the Supreme Court in....