The wholesale cash price for the purpose of calculating excise duty under Section 4 of the Central Excise Act, 1944, should be determined based on the factors of location, time, and method of calculation, as explained by the Court.

( 1 ) THE petitioner in this case, the National Tobacco Co. of India Ltd. , carries on the business of manufacturing cigarettes and tobacco at Agarpara, in 24 Parganas. As such manufacturer, it has to pay excise duty on the value of cigarettes manufactured by it. In this case, we are not concerned with anything else. The rate at which the excise duty is levied, changes from time to time, and it is unnecessary for me to go into the details thereof. It is sufficient to say that at the relevant time, which concerns the years 1955 to 1957, the duty was levied upon a slab system. For example, if the price was within a slab exceeding Rs. 10/- but not exceeding Rs. 15/-per thousand, then there was a particular rate of duty to be charged. If, however, the price was within the next slab, namely higher than Rs. 15/-but not exceeding Rs. 20/- per thousand, then the duty payable is very much more. It follows that if the price is even a few annas more than the maximum limit of the slab, the rate of duty becomes calculable at the higher rate. It is, there-fore, to the interest of the manufacturer to keep the value within the lower slab, and it is always the headache of the Excise Authorities to ensure that this is properly calculated, so that the higher duty is not deliberately avoided. As is to be expected, in the case of a large-scale manufacturer like the petitioner, special arrangements have to be made for the levy of excise duty. Every day, thousands of cigarettes are produced and sold, and until a special machinery is set up, business could not be conducted. In this particular case, the procedure followed was as follows: The Excise Authorities maintain an office at the factory site. It is the practice of the petitioner to advise the Central Excise Authorities every quarter, in January, April, July and October, of the price structure of all brands of cigarettes produced by it. This is done by the issue of a quarterly consolidated price-list. This price-list is submitted to the Excise Authorities, who verify the same from the market and then issue a certificate. Even before a certificate is issued, a provisional approval is made, followed by the final certificate when the verification is completed. A specimen copy of such a certificate is annexed to the petition and marked as Exhibit 'a'. A specimen copy of the price-list issued by the petitioner company is Exhibit "b" to the petition. This is the form in which it was drawn up, up to the quarter beginning April, 1957. This price-list had 9 columns and gave details of (1) brand, (2) net assessable price, (3) duty, (4) distributor's commission, (5) distributor's selling price, (6) dealer's commission, (7) dealer's selling price, (8) retail price per packet and per tin and (9) remarks. At the hearing of this application, a point of dispute arose about the heading 'distributor's selling price'. The question was whether it meant the price at which the distributor sold in the market to an independent buyer, or whether it was the price at which the company sold to the distributor. The application had to be adjourned for verification of this fact, and it is now admitted that the 'distributor's selling price' is the price at which the distributor sold to an independent buyer. Actually, all the nine headings are not very important for our purposes. An example would make this clear. The net assessable price of a brand of cigarette manufactured by the petitioner company namely 'personal preference', per thousand, was Rs. 66/7/- for the quarter beginning January, 1955. This was arrived at in the following manner: The distributor's selling price was shown as Rs. 83/5/ -. From this had to be deducted the duty of Rs. 12/8/-, surcharge of Rs. 3/2/- and the distributor's commission of Rs. 1/4/- leaving a net asesessable price of Rs. 66/7/- per thousand. As I have stated above, the company in its quarterly price-list set out the distributor's selling price, which was then, verified by the