TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1980 (1) TMI 195
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....e Assistant Collector for de novo consideration and after obtaining the chemical test report on the impugned goods. The 7 disputed products were tested by the National Test House, Alipore, Calcutta who confirmed that these products were "WIRES". Accordingly, the Assistant Collector, Central Excise, Aurangabad classified the 7 disputed items also as wires under his order No. V26AA(17)16/76, dated 13-3-1978. This classification list was valid till 22-1-1979. 3. The Superintendent of Central Excise, Aurangabad under his letter dated 22-1-1979 informed the appellants that their products are considered as strips and he therefore requested the appellants to file a fresh classification list and also not to clear the goods till such time the classification list is approved. They further received a letter from the Assistant Collector of Central Excise, Aurangabad on 3-3-1979 informing the appellants that the classification list filed by them earlier is not operative from 22-1-1979. A show cause notice was issued by the Assistant Collector on 22-6-1979 asking them to show cause why the products mentioned in classification list No. 127, dated 22-1-1979 should not be classified as stri....
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....rips, which decision is arbitrary. (h) The adjudicating authority has not appreciated :- (i) that strips are made in strip mills. There are hardly six strip mills in India and each mill is a multicrore project, and people like them cannot afford to install. (ii) that the inputs in a strip mill are sheets or strips and not wires. (iii) that according to I.S.I. standard a strip is a hot or cold rolled flat product and rolled approximately in a rectangular cross-section of thickness usually 10mm and below with mill-rolled trimmed or sheared edges and supplied in coil or flattened coil (straight length) form. None of these characteristics are present in their flattened wires. (iv) that input for a flattened wire is a wire. In their case only wires are flattened on a single strand flattening machine. Their mill is not a strip mill. (v) that the adjudicating officer does not even remotely imply that the edges of the flattened wires manufactured by them have trimmed or sheared edges which is the most important characteristic to distinguish a strip from a flattened wire. (vi) that the National Test House, Alipore, Calcutta, in the case of a few disputed items by the lo....
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....ckness - 6.3 mm. Max. (e) Half-round - 12.5 mm. diameter, Max. He also brought to my attention the explanatory notes to the BIN under Chapter 73 at page 986 in which Hoop and Strip is defined as follows :- "Rolled products with sheared or unsheared edges, of rectangular section, of a thickness not exceeding 6 mm, of a width not exceeding 500 mm and of such dimensions that the thickness does not exceed one tenth of the width, in straight strips, coils or flattened coils" Further in the same page, WIRE is defined as follows :- Cold-drawn products of solid section of any cross-sectional shape, of which no cross-sectional dimension exceeds 13 mm. In the case of heading Nos. 73.26 and 73.27 however, the term `will' is deemed to include rolled products of the same dimensions. He also brought to my attention extract from Metals Hand Book published by the American Society for Metals in which it is stated that : "Dimensionally, flat wire is a product having a width greater than its thickness, the maximum width is 1/2 in. and the cross-sectional area does not exceed 0.050 sq. in. steel products which exceed those dimensional limits are classed as cold rolled strip,....
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....at wire is produced to a carbon range in which the specified or required maximum is over 0.25 per cent by ladle analysis. All flat wire is commonly produced in coils either ribbon wound or viberated wound with specific requirements for coil diameter and coil weight. The size is customarily expressed in fractions or decimal parts of an inch for width and in decimal parts of an inch for thickness" "Flat wire is commonly produced in a single strand straight away or reversing mill or in a tandem mill consisting of several single strands in series. In the single strand mill, the steel is given one more passes so produce a desired thickness. In the tandem mill, the steel goes continuously from one strand to the next each making a predetermined amount of reduction to produce the required thickness". The same book also gives Tolerances for width and thickness as follows :- Maximum width: 0.500 of an inch. Maximum thickness : 0.2499 of an inch. Another book, Mechanical Testing of Wire by H.C. Boynton and H.J. Godfrey describes flat wires as follows :- "Dimensionally, flat wire is a product having a width greater than its thickness, the maximum width is 1/2 in. and the c....
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....Wire (Bush Flat) 5.17X0.78 4.03 23. M.S. Flat Wire (Bush Flat) 5.55X0.76 4.21 24. M.S. Flat Wire (Bush Flat) 5.55X0.71 3.94 25. H.C. Flat 3.15X1.2 3.78 Explanation. - 645 sq. mm = 1 sq. in.   64.5 sq. mm = 0.1 sq. in.         32.25 sq.mm = 0.050 sq. inch. Further, the products also satisfy the other conditions laid down for cross-sectional dimension namely that it should be less than 0.050 of a square inch in order to qualify itself to be a wire. The impugned goods also satisfy the conditions laid down by the Delhi High Court, in the case of M/s. Delhi Cloth Mills v. Union of India and Others [E..L.T. (J 121,1978)] in which their lordships held that the expression goods has three aspects - material, economic and legal. A material position of goods must show that it is in a form in which it has utility, value and exchangeability. Consideration of this material aspect would be incomplete unless its economic aspect was examined. The Court further observed "It is only if the item mentioned in the first schedule is in usable form that it can have economic significance. It will then have ....