ORDER
V.P. Gulati, Vice-President
1. The prayer in the appeal is for setting aside the order of the Ld. Lower authority under which the Ld. Lower authority has allowed the benefit of Notification No. 154/86 which had been denied by the Ld. Original authority for the reason that the appellants had already registered a contract under T.H. 84.66 and the goods came to be assessable under T.H. 98.01 at the time of clearance of goods. At the relevant time, the tariff came to be substituted and the corresponding tariff heading for 84.66 in the new tariff was 98.01. The Ld. Original authority has held that once the contract had been registered the same could not be deregistered.
2. The Ld. JDR for the department has pleaded that the appellant had sought for the benefit of Notification 154/86 which was available only in respect of goods which were specified on tariff-heading-wise in the notification and inasmuch as the respondents’ goods had been entered for clearance under 98.01 (earlier under 84.66) and same were assessable under T.H. 98.01 and the benefit of Notification No. 154/86 could not be given in view of the decision of Division Bench of the Madras High Court in the case of Appraiser, Madras Customs v. Tamil Nadu Newsprint Papers Ltd. . In that case, the Hon’ble Division Bench of the Madras High Court has held that once the concession was available tariff heading wise same could only be allowed, if the goods had been entered for assessment under that heading. In this connection, the observations of the Hon’ble Madras High Court are specified at last para 21 which reads as under:
It is therefore submitted by learned Counsel for the respondent that the 19 items set out in Notification No. 62/85 are entitled to exemption from whole of the auxiliary duty of customs and papermaking machines and component parts thereof being item No. 15 should have the benefit of exemption, whether they fall under Heading No. 84.31 or Heading No. 84.66. We do not agree. It is not for us to consider the motive or the purpose of the notification. We are bound by the language of the notification which, in our view, is very clear and unambiguous. On the terms of the notification, the goods described in column (3) will have the benefit of exemption only if they fall under the heading mentioned in column (2) of the Table attached to the notification.
3. The Ld. consultant for the respondents has pleaded that the issue to be decided is whether the respondents could de-register the contract and thereby coming out of the purview of chapter heading No. 98.01 whether they could be allowed the benefit of Notification 154/86.
4. He was asked to enlighten on the facts as to whether the contract was registered in respect of those two machines or it was for a Project involving a larger number of machines and whether after the clearance of these two machines the other machines were cleared under the Project Import Contract. The question of de-registration would not be considered in the context of how the goods which were entered earlier under the contract procedure were cleared. While there could be no objection to the de-registration of a contract, the respondents, after de-registration, would not be eligible for assessment under T.H. 98.01 in respect of remaining machines which remained to be cleared and which were earlier entered for clearance under 98.01. The Ld. consultant does not have the full facts in this regard and he has pleaded that the matter may be remanded for consideration of the issue.
5. In this connection, we had come across the judgment of the Tribunal in the case of Partap Rajasthan Copper Foils & Laminates Ltd. v. CC, Bombay wherein the Tribunal has upheld that while the de-registration could be done, the appellants could not avail of the benefit of the contract procedure after de-registration by registration of the same. The SLP filed before the Hon’ble Supreme Court in this regard was withdrawn. This order of the Tribunal therefore will have precedential value and this decision of the full bench of the Tribunal is also relevant. Inasmuch as full facts are not before us, we are of the view that the matter will be required to be looked into afresh and we therefore in this background set aside the order of the Ld. Lower authority and remand the matter for de novo consideration and decision by the Ld. lower appellate authority in the light of our above observations and after taking into consideration the decision of the Hon’ble Madras High Court and that of the Tribunal cited supra.
6. The appeal therefore is allowed by remand.