JUDGMENT

RANGANATHAN, J.:— These three appeals can be disposed of by a common order. The appellant is a manufacturer of pipes, tubes and poles made of iron and steel. These products are generally used by the telephone and telegraph departments of the Government of India but can also be used for purposes of transmission and lighting. The question is whether these goods are liable to excise duty under item 26AA or under item 68, in the First schedule to the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 (hereinafter referred to as the Act).

2. Tariff Item No. 26AA was introduced w.e.f. 2444-1962 in the First Schedule to the Act. Item 26AA reads thus:-

"Description of goods Rate of duty

26AA. Iron or Steel Products, The Following Namely:

(i ) Semi-finished steel including blooms, billets, slabs: sheet bars, tin-bars and hoe bars. Three hundred and fifty rupees per metric tonne.

(i-a) Bars, rods, coils, wires, joists, girders, angles other than slotted angles, channels other than slotted channels, tees, flats, beams, zeds, trough, pilling and all other rolled, forged or extruded shapes and sections not otherwise specified. Three hundred and fifty rupees per metric tonne.

(ii) Plates and sheets (including uncoated plates and sheets intended for tinning, and forms such as ridges, channels, rain water pipes and their fittings made from plates or sheets but not including plates and sheets after tinning), and hoops all sorts other than skelp and strips. One thousand three hundred and fifty rupees per metric tonne.

(iii) Flats skelp and strips. One thousand three hundred and fifty rupees per metric tonne.

(iv) Pipes and tubes (including blanks thereof) all sorts,whether rolled, forged, spun, cast, drawn, annealed, welded or extruded. One thousand rupees per meric tonne plus the excise duty for the time being leviable on pig iron or steel ingots, as the case may be.

(v) All other steel castings, not otherwise specified. Seven hundred and fifty rupees per metric tonne.

Explanation - "Skelp" means not rolled narrow strip of width not exceeding six hundred milimetres with rolled (square, slightly round of bevelled) edge."

However, soon afterwards, the Government of India isued a notification dated 1-3-1963 under R. 8 of the Central Excise Rules (hereinafter referred to as the Rules) by which "telegraph, telephone and electric lighting. and transmission poles falling under Item 26AA of the First Schedule of the Act" were declared completely exempt from duty subect to certain conditions and limitations prescribed in the notification with which we are not concerned. (It may be here mentioned that this some similar notification was in force at various points of time but it is unnecessary to set out the full particulars thereof).

3. The appellant, having paid the duty in respect of the above goods under item 26AA, applied to the Assistant Collector, Central Excise on 10-5-1963 for the refund of the duty already paid in view of the notification abovementioned. Permission was also sought for clearance of poles without payment of duty from the factory with immediate effect. The Assistant Collector, by an order dated 25-5-1963, rejected these requests on the ground that the conditions prescribed in the notification for exemption were not satisfied and not on the ground that the goods manufactured did not fall under item 26AA. The appellant thereupon preferred an appeal before the Collector of Central Excise who held that the goods manufactured were eligible for the exemption contained in the notification. This order of the Collector was passed on 29-1-1964. The result was that the appellant paid no duty on the goods in question and the goods were cleared without either payment of duty or collection of duty from the purchasers right from 1962 till 1975.

4. On 1-3-1975, the legislature introduced Tariff Item No. 68 in the First Schedule to the Act covering "goods not elsewhere prescribed". Even thereafter, the appellant filed classification lists showing the poles a