Judgement

SHELAT, J.: These appeals, by certificate, are against the common judgment of the High Court of Punjab which dismissed the writ petitions filed by the appellant companies challenging the legality of excise duty levied against them under Item 14-H in Sch. I to the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1 of 1944. Writ Petition 212 of 1966 by Tata Chemicals Ltd. also raises the same question. As both the appeals and the writ petition raise a common question of law they were heard together and are disposed of by this common judgment.

2. The appellant companies manufacture sugar by carbonation process as against sulphitation process employed by some other manufacturers of sugar and pay excise duty on the sugar manufactured by them under Item 1 of Sch. 1 to the Act. According to the affidavit of V. J. Bakre, Deputy Chief Chemist of the Central Revenue Control Laboratory, these manufacturers burn limestone with coke in a lime kiln with a regulated amount of air and generate a mixture of gases consisting of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen arid a small quantity of carbon monoxide. Most of the oxygen from the air is used up by the coke in the process of burning itself. The coke so burnt sup