TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2002 (8) TMI 822
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....ssment years 1982-83, 1983-84, 1984-1985 and 1985-86 supplied exhaust pipes to Ashok Leyland Limited which is a manufacturer of trucks. The exhaust pipes which are made by the petitioner to the specification given by the buyer were to be fitted into the trucks after the buyer had carried out certain further processing operation which included block setting, welding/brazing of flanges and matching components at both ends, surface treatment and red oxide painting and assembly to the engine/ chassis manufactured by the buyer. The petitioner paid taxes on exhaust pipe so supplied by it to Ashok Leyland as an item of declared goods falling under Second Schedule to the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, more particularly, item 4, sub-item (xi) the....
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.... See Tube Investments of India Ltd. v. Deputy Commercial Tax Officer [2000] 120 STC 59 (TNTST). "Tube" is defined in the same dictionary, inter alia, as "a long hollow cylinder of metal, plastic, glass, etc., for holding or transporting, etc., chiefly liquids or gases........" 5.. The further submission was that if the exhaust pipe which was merely a tube of steel was capable of being regarded as "steel tube", then it would fall within the scope of entry 16 of the Second Schedule to the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act. Further consequence would be, according to learned counsel, to remove that item "exhaust pipe" which is made out of steel tube from within the scope of the entries in the First Schedule, more particularly, entr....
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....ax Act, 1956. The court held that galvanising the pipe is merely to make it weather proof and the pipe would remain a steel tube before and after galvanising. The court observed: "Neither its structure nor function is altered. As a commercial item it is not different from a steel tube". In the case of Bharat Forge and Press Industries (P) Ltd. v. Collector of Central Excise AIR 1990 SC 616, the court considered the question as to whether pipe fittings made by a manufacturer which had purchased steel pipes and tubes in the open market, thereafter cut them into different sizes, and made them into pipe fittings in their factories by heating in a furnace, hammering and pressing, could be regarded as pipes and tubes. The Central Excise Tariff, i....
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....e classification of that product under a fiscal schedule like the Central Excise Tariff. What is more important is whether the broad description of the article fits in with the expression used in the Tariff." The court concluded that "....it is difficult to say that pipe fittings, though they may have a distinctive name, are not pipes and tubes. It is true that all pipes and tubes cannot be described as pipe fittings. But it would not be correct to say that pipe fittings are not pipes and tubes. They are only a species of pipes and tubes". 9.. In the case of Indian Metals and Ferro Alloys Ltd. v. Collector of Central Excise AIR 1991 SC 1028, the court considered the case of an assessee who manufactured pipes, tubes and poles made of i....
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....xcess of 4 per cent. 11.. Our attention was also invited to the case of Commissioner of Sales Tax, U.P. v. Agra Belting Works [2001] 121 STC 396 (SC) in which it was held that State has no authority to change the character of the declared goods. The court observed: "The contention of the department is that the notification issued under section 3-A of the Act has prescribed a specific rate of tax in respect of beltings of all kinds and, therefore the cotton belting manufactured by the revisionist ceases to be a declared goods. This contention is not tenable because the State has no authority to change the character of the declared goods. If a commodity falls in the category of declared goods, as defined in section 14 of the Central Sal....