Writ Petition No. 9276/84. Case: Mysore Petro Chemicals Ltd. Vs Assistant Collector of Cus., Madras. High Court of Madras (India)

Case NumberWrit Petition No. 9276/84
CounselFor Petitioner: Shri C. Natarajan, Advocate and For Respondents: Shri S.R. Sundaram, Additional Standing Counsel.
JudgesRaju, J.
IssueCustoms Tariff Act, 1975 - Section 3(1)
Citation1994 (73) ELT 33 (Mad)
Judgement DateMarch 17, 1994
CourtHigh Court of Madras (India)

Order:

  1. This writ petition coming on for hearing on Tuesday the 15th day of March 1994 and on this day upon perusing the petition and the affidavit filed in support thereof the order of the High Court, dated 18-9-1984 and made herein and the records relating to the order in the aforesaid prayer to the writ made by the High Court and upon hearing the arguments of Mr. C. Natarajan, Advocate for the petitioner and of Mr. S.R. Sundaram, Additional Standing Counsel on behalf of the respondents the court made the following order:-

    The above writ petition has been filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for a writ of mandamus to forbear the respondents from levying and collecting additional duty under Section 3(1) of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975, Central Act 51 of 1975 on all imports of orthoxylene by the petitioner through the port of Madras.

  2. The petitioner, in the affidavit filed in support of the writ petition claims to be a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956. It is claimed that they have a factory at Station Road, Raichur, Karnataka State and they manufacture Phthalic Anhydride (hereinafter referred as `finished product). For the purpose of manufacturing the above referred to finished products the petitioner require orthoxylene (hereinafter referred to as the "imported goods). The imported goods which is sought to be subjected to countervailing duty, is stated to be totally exempt from excise duty in the country by virtue of a notification issued under Rule 8(1) of the Central Excise Rules, 1944 read with Section 3(3) of the Oil (Additional Duties of Excise and Customs) Act, 1958 in Notification No. 276 of 67, dated 21-12-1967. There is no serious controversy over the fact that under the said notification exemption has been granted in respect of goods falling under Tariff Item Nos. 6 to 11A of the First Schedule which would include the imported category of goods from the entire excise duty payable thereon subject to the terms and conditions stipulated therein and that it cannot be also disputed that if the goods are produced by the petitioners in India for the manufacturing activity the said goods would be totally exempt from excise duty. The petitioners claim further that they are entitled to obtain the said goods required by them free of duty for the purpose of manufacturing their finished products. It is also claimed that the imported category of goods are manufactured in India by Indian Petro Chemical Corpo-ration Limited, Baroda and the finished products of the type manufactured by the petitioners are manufactured by five concerns, namely, (i) the petitioners, (ii) Hardillis Chemicals Limited, (iii) S.G. Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals, (iv) Ambuja Petro Chemicals Limited and (v) Thirumalai Chemicals Limited. It is also stated that the finished products of the petitioners and the above concerns are all of very important nature and was required for the purpose of paints, plasticizers, dyes, pigments etc. On the above fact situation it is claimed that on the manufacture and clearance of the imported category of goods, in this country which as stated supra, are manufactured in India only by the Indian Petro Chemical Corporation Limited, Baroda. Total exemption from excise duty will be available in so far as the above referred to five manufacturers of the finished products including the petitioner herein. It is also claimed that since the imported category of goods were in short supply in India, the import of the same from foreign countries have been permitted under open General Licence Policy.

  3. Admittedly on every goods imported into this country generally speaking three types of...

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