Judgement

JUDGMENT :- The issue that we are concerned with in these appeals arises in the context of claims for refund of excise duty. It pertains to the meaning of the phrase component parts. The Tribunal, in the impugned order, drew a distinction between component parts and spare parts, following its earlier decision in the case of Vaz Forwarding Pvt. Ltd. v. Collector of Customs. Component parts, according to it, were those which were initially used in the assembly or manufacture of a machine and spare parts were those parts which were used for the subsequent replacement therein of worn out parts. The decision in Vaz Forwarding Pvt. Ltd. and other decisions of the Tribunal were considered by a larger Bench of the Tribunal in Jindal Strips Ltd. v. Collector of Customs, Bombay, (1997) 94 ELT 234. The larger bench took the view that a spare part was a replacement part to replace a damaged or worn out component but it was, nevertheless, a component part. Component was the genus and spare was a species thereof; it was a component which was used for replacement. The larger Bench judgment found that the distinction drawn in Vaz Forwarding Pvt. Ltd. was a distinction without a difference