ORDER
S.L. Peeran, Member (J)
1. This is a Revenue appeal arising from the Order-in-Appeal No. 39/94 dated 31-1-94 by which the Commissioner (Appeals) held that the appellants are entitled to the benefit of Notification 175/86. He further held that they were applying a sticker indicating the name of their company “Turnbull Control Systems (India) Ltd. – made in India” and had obtained permanent certificate registering their company from the Department of Industries & Commerce, Government of Tamil Nadu and has also registered as SSI. The Commissioner noted that affixing the label of the company does not bring within the ambit of the definition of “brand name’ or ‘trade name’ and the item is not traded in the name of the company and hence, he upheld their contention for grant of benefit of Notification No. 175/86. The Revenue contends that affixing a label “Turnbull Control Systems (P) Ltd. -made in India” would make the Respondents ineligible for the benefit of the Notification. Inscription of “Turnbull Control Systems (I) Ltd.” would bring within the ambit of ‘brand name’ or ‘trade name’, hence the benefit of the Notification should be denied.
2. Heard learned DR Sri S. Kannan, who submits that foreign company of the appellants were also using the same initials and hence use of foreign initial of the counterpart is not eligible for benefit of Notification.
3. Respondents have not appeared, despite notice, hence the matter was heard on merits.
4. We have perused the detailed order of the Commissioner (Appeals), who has clearly noted that there was no use of any foreign brand name in the matter except that they were affixing the sticker of their company which has been registered in India and the appellants had taken registration with the Director of Small Scale Industries. In order to disqualify the assessee from the eligibility of the Notification, the assessee should affix any brand name on the same goods and the brand name should be associated with the product. In the present case, use of company name does not bring within the ambit of ‘brand name’ and the said view has been expressed by the Hon’ble Apex Court in the case of Astra Pharmaceuticals (P) Ltd. as reported in 1995 (75) E.L.T. 214 (S.C.), wherein it has been held that there is a distinction between ‘house mark’ and ‘product mark’. It has also been held that House Mark (usually a device in the form of an emblem, word or both) is an identification of the manufacturer while the Product Mark or Brand Name is the one by which the product is identified. Therefore, the use of company’s name label would not bring within the ambit of definition of brand name in the light of the Apex Court judgment. Therefore, there is no merit in the appeal of the Revenue and the same is rejected.
