ORDER
V.P. Gulati, Vice President
1. The issue in the appeal relates to benefit of Notification No. 13/81 in respect of item Refrigeration which is to be mounted on trucks used for transport of the raw materials from outside to the 100% E.O.U. factory. The ld. lower appellate authority in this regard held as under :-
“The refrigerated trucks are used only for the purpose of transporting in frozen condition the raw material when it is brought into the factory for manufacture/production and for transport of the final product in frozen condition from the factory to the export point. The main purpose, therefore, is transportation and not production or packaging. The refrigerated trucks and its spares are also not specified in the Table annexed to the Notification. If it is held that the refrigerated trucks are ‘Material Handling Equipments’ then the only type of material handling equipments which are specified in the notification are fork lifts, overhead cranes, mobile cranes, crawler cranes, hoists and stackers. The spares of only this type of material handling equipments are covered in the said Table. Spares of refrigerated trucks are not covered in the said table.”
2. In the grounds of appeal following has been urged :-
“It is respectfully submitted that the Appellant has complied with all the provisions of Notification No. 13/81 since the appellant is a 100% Export Oriented Undertaking and is using spares imported in connection with the production of goods for export. The department never had a case that the Appellant was not using the goods in connection with the production of goods for export as has been held in the impugned order. In fact by his order dated 1-8-1995 the Assistant Commissioner had denied the benefit of Notification 13/81 on the ground that the spares would be used outside the bonded premises.
In fact it has been categorically found in the impugned order that the spares imported by the appellant are used for transporting in frozen condition the raw material when brought into the factory for manufacture/production and for transport of final product in frozen condition from the factory to the export point. In the circumstances, when it cannot be denied that the spares imported by the Appellant are “used in connection with the production of packaging of goods for export”, the reasoning of the Commissioner (Appeals) that since the spares are used for transportation, the notification will not apply, is arbitrary and without basis in law.”
3. The ld. SDR reiterated the reasonings in the order of the ld. Lower authority.
4. We have considered the submissions. We observe that admittedly the refrigerated trucks in question are used for transport of the goods into the factory. May be raw material are required in frozen conditions for their carriage but that by itself cannot be a reason to hold that the trucks have been used for production of the goods as envisaged in the Notification 13/81. The reasoning given by the ld. Commissioner is in accordance with law and we do not find therefore any reason to interfere with the impugned order. The appeal is therefore is rejected.