Judgment

Ruma Pal, J.—The dispute in these matters arises out of an exemption which had been granted by the Central Government to new industries by Notification No. 32/99-CE dated 8th July 1999 issued under Section 5A of the Central Excise Act, 1944 (referred to hereafter as ‘the Act’). The parties in the various proceedings which are being disposed of by this judgment, represent industries manufacturing cigarettes on the one hand (whom we will refer to as “the petitioners”) and the Union of India and the excise authorities on the other (who are described as “the respondents”). Almost all the petitioners are job workers for large tobacco companies. They set up their units under agreements with the large tobacco companies and admittedly produced the cigarettes with the brand names of those companies. The few exceptions to this are noted subsequently.

2. In December, 1997 the Government of India had announced a separate industrial policy for the North Eastern Region of the country which proposed to stimulate ‘synergetic’ development of industries in the region by giving a package of incentives which included exemption from excise duties, transport subsidies, capital investment subsidie