TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1987 (9) TMI 197
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
.... 1944, and in supersession of the notification of the Government of India in the Ministry of Finance (Department of Revenue and Insurance) No. 24/74-Central Excises, dated the 1st March, 1974, the Central Government hereby exempts straw board and mill board, falling under sub-item (2) of Item No. l7 of the First Schedule to the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 (1 of 1944), taken together, upto a quantity specified in Column (1) of the Table hereto annexed, cleared by any manufacturer for home consumption during any financial year, from so much of the duty of excise leviable thereon as is in excess of the duty specified in the corresponding entry in Column (2) of the said Table : THE TABLE Quantity Duty (1) (2) On the first 500 metric tones 15 per cent ad valorem On the next 500 metric tonnes 25 per cent ad valorem, Provided that where a factory producing strawboard or mill board, or both, is run at different times of any financial year by different manufacturers, the quantity of such boards cleared from such factory in any such financial year at concessional rates of duty shall not exceed in the aggregate the limits specified in Column (1) of t....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....d jute used by the respondents was mechanically digested in their own mill and that therefore mechanical pulp was produced therefrom and utilised for the manufacture of mill board. In that view of the matter, he was asked as to how it could be said that the specified raw materials had not been used for the manufacture of mill board. He could not say whether mechanical pulp was indeed produced and used. 4. Shri N.C. Jain, the learned Consultant for the respondents stated that the straw and jute was first converted into mechanical pulp by a mechanical process and later by using hot water stirrer and grinder and no chemical was used for making this pulp. He pleaded inasmuch as in terms of notification use of mechanical pulp for the manufacture of mill board was allowed, merely because the mechanical pulp was prepared out of straw and jute in their own factory cannot bar the goods from the benefit of the said notification. He drew our attention in this regard to the material in the Book on 'Pulp and Paper' by James P. Casey, Volume I : Pulping and Papermaking : Inter science Publisher Inc., New York 1952; under the heading "Types of Pulping Processes" it is set out as under : "Pu....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....ricultural and agro-industrial waste, which include -cereal and rice straws and sugarcane bagasse. (2) Natural-growing plants which include bamboo, reeds, esparto, and sabai grass. (3) Cultivated fiber crops, which include leaf fibers, such as abaca (Manila hemp), sisal, and henequen; and bast or stem fibers, such as jute, true hemp, sunn hemp, flax-tow and their salvaged products. Bagasse, bamboo, cereal straw, esparto grass, and reeds are the dominant materials among the non-wood fibers for the production of pulp and a range of papers and boards. These pulps are used either wholly or blended kraft long-fiber pulp or wastepaper to produce corrugated medium liner insulating boards, sack paper, imitation kraft." "Pulping process - "The pulping chemicals used for annual plant fibers and other non-wood materials are basically the same as used in the pulping of wood. The pulping processes include : (1) Straight soda or modified soda process, (2) Sulfate process with varying sulfidity, (3) Neutral or monosulfite process, (4) Acid sulfite process, (5) Soda-chlorine (Celdocor-Pomilio) process, (6) Mechane-chemical process, (7) Cold soda process. Sele....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....he mechanical pulp referred to only mechanical wood pulp. In the context the relevant portion of the Chapter Notes is reproduced below : "This pulp consists essentially of cellulose fibres obtained from various vegetable materials, or from waste textiles of vegetable origin. The most important pulp in international trade is wood pulp, termed "mechanical wood pulp" or "chemical wood pulp" according to its method of preparation. The woods mostly used are pine, spruce, poplar and aspen, but the use of harder woods such as beech and chestnut is extending. Mechanical wood pulp is obtained by disintegrating or grinding wood, freed of its bark and sometimes of its knots, into fibres by mechanical milling under a flow of water. Milling without prior steam treating produces the so-called "white" mechanical wood pulp in which the fibres are broken and weakened. The wood may be steam treated before grinding, this giving stronger fibres or brown colour (brown mechanical wood pulp)." It is seen that CCCN Notes do not deal with various other types of pulp that are available and has only referred to the most important pulp available in the international trade as wood pulp and descr....