2019 (7) TMI 249

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.... 3. The facts of the case in brief are that the appellant herein is engaged in refining crude vegetable oil into refined vegetable oil which is their final product and is exempted. During the process, certain other products viz., gums, spent earth/ wax/ fatty oil, etc., emerge which they sell to soap manufacturers for consideration. They were not paying Central Excise duty on these products. It is the case of the revenue that these goods merit classification under Central Excise Tariff Heading 1522 00 20 and 1522 00 90 and are liable to Central Excise duty. The assessee, however, did not pay the Central Excise duty claiming the benefit of exemption notification 89/1995 dated 18.05.1995 which exempts "waste, parings and scrap" arising in t....

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.... point to be decided is whether or not the gum/ wax/ fatty oils etc., which arise during the refining of vegetable oil, are liable to Central Excise duty or are exempted by notification 89/1995-CE as waste products arising during the course of manufacture of exempted products. He would submit that this issue is no more res integra as it was decided by the Larger Bench of the Tribunal in Ricela Health Foods Ltd [2018 (361) ELT 1049 (Tri-LB)]. He would draw the attention of the bench to Paras 11, 12 & 13 of this judgment which are as follows: "11. The thrust of the arguments by the Revenue is that when a product is capable of being sold for a significant consideration the same cannot be considered as waste. We are unable to accept su....

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....ew that the removal of unwanted materials resulting in products like gums, waxes and fatty acid with odour cannot be called as a process of manufacture of these gums, waxes and fatty acid with odour. The process of manufacture is for refined rice bran oil. As such, we note that these incidental products are nothing but waste arising during course of refining of rice bran oil and applying the ratio of Apex Court, as discussed above, these cannot be considered as manufactured excisable goods. Noting that the reference is to decide whether these are to be treated as waste for the purpose of exemption Notification No. 89/95-C.E. we note though the excisability of the product itself is seriously in dispute as per the opinion expressed by us, as ....