1997 (3) TMI 225

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....l, the following has been urged : (2) Collector of Central Excise, Bangalore failed to appreciate that the investigations carried out clearly established that M/s. Prakash Tea Agency had manufactured and cleared "package tea" falling under Tariff Item No. 3 of the erstwhile Central Excise Tariff and Chapter 9 of the schedule to the Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985. (3) Collector of Central Excise, Bangalore also failed to observe that Chapter Note 2 to Chapter 9 clarifies that "for the purpose of Heading 09.02, blending, sorting, packing or repacking into smaller containers shall amount to manufacture". (4) Collector of Central Excise, Bangalore failed to take note of the decision of the Hon'ble High Court of Calcutta....

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.... 20 kilograms, whether or not ordinarily intended for sale to consumers in that pack Rs. 1.10 per kilogram plus the duty for the time being leviable under sub-heading 0902.19 He has pleaded that tea was packed by weight in covers and the weight parameters fell within the limits laid down for package tea in the tariff. He pleaded that the respondents, therefore, can be taken to have manufactured package tea. As to the nature of the packing, the learned SDR could not enlighten us except saying that the respondents get paper cover made out for specified weight and the specific address of the firm. The pre-determined weight of the tea was put in the respondents' cover carrying the weight of the packet. He in this context pleaded that the ....

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....' and `instant tea'. Package of any sort cannot be impressed within the term varieties of the product known commercially as tea including green tea and instant tea. To crown it all, in sub-item (2) of Item No. 3 where package tea is dealt with, it is described as package tea, that is to say, tea packed in any kind of container containing not more than 27 Kg. net of tea. (underlining is ours for the sake of emphasis). It is, therefore, the net weight of the tea over which excise duty is leviable and not the product in which such tea is contained. Therefore, sufficient intrinsic evidence in the first schedule itself reinforces our conclusion that package of any sort or a container containing tea cannot be an excisable good in the first schedu....