1983 (5) TMI 221

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....sought the benefit of lower rate of duty under entry 58 of Notification No. 118/80-Cus. This entry reads as under :- "(58) Automatic lead welding, lacquering, testing, colour coating, sorting and packing machine for resistors." The Appellate Collector held that between them the machines imported by the appellants could do all the jobs enumerated in the aforesaid entry 58 but each machine separately could not do all the jobs. The Appellate Collector then recorded his order as under :- "There seems no doubt at all that there is a slip-up in issuing original notification. However executive and quasi-judicial authorities can only interpret the law as it stands and not read it corrected as per intentions which remained unreflected in the....

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....stated that the original entry 58 of the notification was meaningless as no single machine could perform all the functions enumerated in the entry. Hence, entry 58 as worded in singular, i.e., as "machine" instead of as "machines" was a slip up and the same had been rectified by the Government by an amending notification providing clearly that any one single automatic machine could perform only one or more of the aforesaid functions. In the light of this, the appellants urged that the subsequent amendment may be treated as clarificatory and the benefit thereof should be given to them or the original entry 58 should be construed in a manner so as to give a reasonable meaning. 3. The Department's representative maintained that since the....

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....re is anything repugnant in the subject or context, words in the singular shall include the plural, and vice versa. In the light of these authorities and provision, there could be no objection to the word "and" in the original entry 58 being read as "or" or the word "machine" in the same entry being read as "machines" if these variations can give a reasonable meaning to the entry. By so doing, the entry covered an automatic machine which could perform one or more of the functions enumerated in the entry. In view of this, we find merit in the appellants' claim. Accordingly we allow their appeal with consequential relief. 5. [Minority view per : H.R. Syiem, Member (Tech)]. - We are dealing here not with any interpretation of a piece of ....