TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (5) TMI 864
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.... 22/2003-CE dated 31.03.2003. Based on the audit observations that the appellant is not eligible for the exemption of the inputs cleared under DTA show cause notice was issued demanding customs duty as per law. The Original Authority accordingly confirmed the duty amount for the disputed periods along with interest. The Commissioner (Appeals) upheld the order of the original authority. 3. The Learned Counsel countering the findings of the Commissioner (Appeals) submits that they are governed by the main paragraph (3) of the Notification No. 52/2003 and paragraph 6 of Notification No.22/2003, hence there is no need to invoke proviso to the said notifications. It is his submission that the law is well settled where the language of the main enactment is clear the proviso can have no repercussion on its interpretation so as to exclude from it by implication what clearly falls within its terms, accordingly the impugned order cannot be sustained. It is further submitted that the appellant being 100% EOU they are liable to pay central excise duty under proviso to Section 3 (1) of the Central Excise Act, 1944 and the nature of duty payable by them is in the nature of central excise duti....
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....No. 26/98-Central Excise (NT), dated the 15th July. 1998 or No. 46/2001-Central Excise (NT), dated the 26th June. 2001 or cleared to the warehouse authorised to carry out manufacturing process or other operation under section 65 of the Customs Act. 1962 (52 of 1962) and under the Manufacture and Other Operations in Warehouse Regulation, or cleared to the holders of certificate from Apparel Export Promotion Council and Council for Leather Export for duty free imports as referred to in clause (e) of the paragraph 6.9 of the Export and Import Policy, without payment of duty . Provided that where such finished goods (including rejects, waste and scrap and remnants) are not excisable, customs duty equal in amount to that leviable on the inputs imported under this notification and used for the purpose of manufacture of such finished goods, which would have been paid but for the exemption under this notification shall be payable at the time of clearance of such finished goods:" 5.1. In view of the above proviso since the goods have been cleared under DTA without payment of duty, the observation of the Commissioner that duty foregone on the inputs utilized in the manufact....
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...., as LORD MACNAGHTEN laid down, be "a qualification of the preceding enactment which is expressed in terms too general to be quite accurate". The general rule has been stated by HIDAYATULLAH, J., in the following words: "As a general rule, a proviso is added to an enactment to qualify or create an exception to what is in the enactment, and ordinarily, a proviso is not interpreted as stating a general rule". And in the words of KAPUR, J.: "The proper function of a proviso is that it qualifies the generality of the main enactment by providing an exception and taking out as it were, from the main enactment, a portion which, but for the proviso would fall within the main enactment [Id]." 64. But then these principles are subject to other principles of statutory interpretation which may supplement or even substitute the above formula. These other rules which have been categorized by Justice G.P. Singh are summarized as follows: (i) A proviso is not construed as excluding or adding something by implication: "Except as to cases dealt with by it, a proviso has no repercussion on the interpretation of the enacting portion of the section so as to exclude something by implic....
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....n enactment or as stating a general rule as distinguished from an exception or qualification is ordinarily foreign to the proper function of a proviso. However, this is only true of a real proviso. The insertion of a proviso by the draftsman has not always strictly adhered to its legitimate use and at times a section worded as a proviso may wholly or partly be in substance a fresh enactment adding to and not merely excepting something out of or qualifying what goes before [Id at p. 228]." 65. Perhaps the most comprehensive and oft-cited precedent governing the interpretation of a proviso is the decision of this Court in S. Sundaram Pillai v. V.R. Pattabiraman [(1958) 1 SCC 591]. Justice S. Murtaza Fazal Ali speaking for a three judge Bench of this Court held: "43. ...To sum up, a proviso may serve four different purposes: (1) qualifying or excepting certain provisions from the main enactment: (2) it may entirely change the very concept of the intendment of the enactment by insisting on certain mandatory conditions to be fulfilled in order to make the enactment workable: (3) it may be so embedded in the Act itself as to become an integral....