TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2005 (5) TMI 95
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....Appeal above-mentioned alongwith connected matters called on for hearing before this Court on the 11th, ….th and 19th days of April, 2001, upon perusing the ….nd hearing Counsel for the parties herein, This ….th Pass the following order : "It was for the Tribunal to determine, as a fact, whether the structurals that the Department sought to make exigible to excise duty in the various appeals before it were new, identifiable goods which were produced as a result of manufacture or processes and which were marketable. Depending upon its conclusion on these aspects in each of the appeals before it, it was for the Tribunal to determine whether or not the goods in question in each of these appeals were exigible to excise duty. In the ....
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....khana Ltd. - 2002 (142) E.L.T. 12 (S.C.). On the contrary, the revenue relied upon the decisions of the Tribunal in the case of Bee Aari Engg. - 2001 (134) E.L.T. 528; Sangameshwar Pipe & Steel Trader -2002 (141) E.L.T. 252; Aarti Steels - 2002 (144) E.L.T. 360; A.C.C. v. C.C.E., Nagpur - 1996 (88) E.L.T 149. He submits that these disputed items are excisable and the process undertaken by the appellants amounts to manufacture. 5. We find that appellants are fabricating columns, purlines etc. by cutting, drilling, punching & welding on duty paid channels and angles and thereafter these are being assembled to post at work site and are fixed in the exact position. In the impugned order it is held that process undertaken by the appellant amo....
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....hat goods in question are not excisable goods and the processes undertaken by the assessee does not amount to manufacture. The Tribunal held as under :- "26. The department's case is due to their perception of trusses, purlines, beams, columns, platforms, as goods which have been manufactured from channels, angles, joists, sheets and therefore must be subjected to duty, nothing could be more fallacious. There are no such goods as trusses, columns, purlines, made from channels, angles, joists. A truss is only a frame made from steel, timber, concrete etc. All the members remain unchanged; but their length etc. may have to be modified by cutting to the desired length; they may be joined by bolting, welding etc. to hold them together in a g....
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....lled, sized, joined, welded, bolted together so that, in their newly acquired strength they form a pillar which will hold up part of a structure like a building. It may be a mass of concrete compacted to great strength so that it supports a bridge. But for all the cutting, drilling that the steel products received, they remain what they were, not changed, only adapted to a particular use. Let us remember, no steel factory makes a sheet, an angle, a beam, that fits all uses. All products of a steel factory must be sized, drilled, cut etc. to enable their use as such sheets, angles, beams. This is because the steel factories make only standard sheets, beams, angles, but the actual user seldom has a use that accepts the product as it comes out....
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....ry product has a shape which pre-eminently fits it for the application to which it is put, and this has to be driven home very strongly; that shape must be kept when it is used in the structurals if it to give of its best. Thus every 'I' beam, every 'L' angle, every 'U' shape; even if it is shorter after cutting at site, it has the same shape and form it had when it left the steel factory. The angle is still an angle, the channel a channel, the sheet a sheet, the beam a beam. To be sure, they had to be sized, cut, drilled so that they could be put up together into one structure; but unless one just bound them together, say with wire, or just piled them one on top of another, we cannot see how else the building or shed would be erected. The ....