1988 (11) TMI 109

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....of India, manufactures ossein and gelatine. It claimed exemption from excise duty under a notification of the Government of India dated 30-6-1979. By this notification one more item was added to a list of items exempted from payment of excise duty under an earlier notification dated 1-3-1975. This item reads as follows: 'Crushed bones and bone products.' 3. The respondent company manufactures the above products from bones. Ossein is prepared from bones by dissolving the mineral part of the bones with phosphoric acid. From the ossein so obtained, gelatine is obtained by treating the same further with an alkali. Although gelatine can also be manufactured from other sources such as pig skin and hides, it is common ground that the respondent ....

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.... to the benefit of the same notification, treating it as a 'bone product'. 5. The learned Solicitor General, appearing on behalf of the appellant, submitted that the view taken by the Tribunal is erroneous. According to him, the words 'bone products' should be read along with words 'crushed bones' and, therefore, the exemption under the notification is only limited to primary products obtained on crushing of bones such as bone sinew, bone grist and bone meal. He submitted that ossein and gelatine cannot be described as bone products because they could also be obtained from raw material other than bones, such as pig skin and hides. What is essential, according to him, is to consider whether the products in question retain the principal char....

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....merely by the extraction of the mineral parts of the bones. Gelatine is obtained by a further treatment, with an alkali, of the ossein manufactured from the bones. It is the collagen which forms the organic content of the bones and is utilised in the manufacture of ossein and gelatine. The word 'product' is defined in Webster's Comprehensive Dictionary as "anything produced or obtained as a result of some operation or work". The expression "bone products" therefore merely means anything produced or obtained from bones. Whether such derivation is by a simple physical process or by a chemical reaction would seem to make no difference to the end product. Buttermilk, for instance, does not cease to be a milk product merely because a chemical pr....