TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1983 (1) TMI 269
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....the grounds of appeal that the appellant company imported, by means of two Bills of Entry, items which are described as parts of complete haemocytometers, which the party asserts to be medical and diagnostic pathological instruments. The consignments consisted of 'Blood Counting Chambers' and 'pipettes'. The Department, at the time of clearance of the goods, assessed them under Tariff Entry 70.17/18 of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975, treating them to be 'laboratory glassware', whereas party's contention was that these constituted a complete set of haemocytc-meters and were clearly in the nature of 'medical diagnostic pathological instruments' as contemplated by Tariff Entry 90.17/18. However, neither the Assistant Collector nor the Collector ....
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....s well as catalogue of the dealer in West Germany from whom he had purchased these items as also of 'Albert Sass' to which a reference was made in the grounds of revision itself. He also presented before the Bench a box containing these two items, namely, the blood counting chamber and the two tubes-one having a red nozzle and the other a white one-explaining that what he imported was the blood counting chamber, and the tubes-one made for red blood corpuscle and the other for white blood corpuscle, and what the appellant was doing after import was only putting them in one compact set and further explained that these were imported loose in order to save costs of imports because importing them in box-sets would entail higher freight rate and ....
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.... any pathological function and that the pipettes are used only for drawing blood and that glass slides are only used for deposit of blood, and that the counting of cells was done by the aid of microscope, and that but for the microscopic reading, these slides by themselves would not be discharging any function which could be characterised as medically diagnostic. He also made reference to the BTN Explanatory Notes at page 939, relating to Chapter 70.17/18 wherein it was emphasised that the heading "Laboratory, Hygienic and pharmaceutical glassware" included all sorts of glass articles which are in general use whether research, pharmaceutical or industrial, and further pointed out that 'pipettes' find mention as one of these numerous article....
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....hambers have very fine grooves which are also not visible to naked eye, and these help the blood to disintegrate to facilitate counting. The catalogue of his own supplier, namely, 'Glass Messgerate' also a German concern further corroborates his plea in this regard because at page 18 of this catalogue, a Haemocytometer is described to be containing :- (1) 1 blood mixing pipette (red), (2) 1 blood mixing pipette (white), (3) 2 cover slides, optically plane, and (4) 1 counting chamber with grid division : Either single or double. 8.  It is thus abundantly clear from a perusal of these catalogues that what was imported as blood counting chambers, were not plain glass slides but highly specialised appliances to be employed f....
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.... items to be read with the aid of a microscope, by qualified pathologists. The Department has apparently taken an erroneous view in regard to these specialised articles, as general laboratory glassware, in which category only such items as bottles, tubes, filters, distilling flasks, jars, etc. could fall, and pipettes also of general nature, and not made to specific requirements, as in the present case. The Department has itself been admittedly regarding them as such before the decision of the Collectors' Conference referred to by the learned Departmental Representative. A reference to the extract of this Conference also reveals that they have proceeded on a wrong assumption, namely, that the 'blood counting chamber' consisted of a simple g....