Rectified spirit imported for industrial use is not an excisable article under the Rajasthan Excise Act, 1950, and the State Legislature is not competent to impose excise duty on rectified spirit.

1. - The litigation in the above four writ petitions is between the came parties, namely-M/s Hindustan Copper Ltd. Khetri Copper Complex Khetri Nagar (Jhunjhunu) (for short petitioner company) and the State of Rajasthan and others and a question in each of them is as to whether any excise duty can be charged on the rectified spirit imported by the petitioner company. Therefore, all the above four writ petitions are being disposed of by this common order.

2. The Government of India Ministry of Industry, Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, has been making ad hoc inter-State allocation of Alcohol for potable and industrial use from year to year and the petitioner company has imported rectified spirit from year to year for industrial use. The non-petitioner No. 3 is demanding excise duty on the imported rectified spirit on the ground that it is an excisable article within the meaning of Section 3(4) of the Rajasthan Excise Act, 1950 (for short, the Act) and though in the above writ petitions the period of allocation is different but as stated earlier the issue involved in all the above four writ petition, is identical, whether any excise duty under the provisions of the Act can he charged on rectified spirit imported for industrial use. It will be convenient to give facts of the first of the four writ petitions namely Writ Petition No. 1669/84. The petitioner company is engaged in the mining operations and manufacture of copper and other bye-products. It has a complex known a' Khetri Copper Complex at Khetrinagar where amongst other plants the company has its Refinery plant also. In the aforesaid Refinery plant the company is using rectified spirit for stripping operation of pure copper starting sheets. Rectified spirit as aforesaid is used for purely industrial purposes and is not at all used or meant for human consumption. The rectified spirit is being purchased by the petitioner company from M/s Damala Sugar Works UP as the basis of permit issued by the Government of India and on the basis of allocations made as aforesaid from year to year. The petitioner company for the purpose of industrial use is procuring 20,000 litres of rectified 'spirit on the basis of the permit granted by the Government of India. As the rectified spirit is not being imported for human consumption, it is not excisable article. The District Excise Officer (Rural) Jaipur vide his notice dated 12.6.1984 called upon the petitioner Company to deposit a sum of Rs. 4,24,054.75 towards the payment of the excise duty for the rectified spirit within a period of 10 days failing which it was stated that recovery of the said amount would be effected in accordance with the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act, 1956. The petitioner company replied that it has taken steps to make representation to tie State Government and the Excise Commissioner and it was requested that the demand notice be kept in observance till these authorities take a decision on the matter. The District Excise Officer (Rural) Jaipur sent a notice to the petitioner company under Section 229 of the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act, 1956, on September 24. 1984 for effecting recovery of the aforesaid amount. By this notice the petitioner company was called upon to make the payment within 15 days of the receipt of the notice. In the return filed by the non-petitioner No. 3 a case has been set up that within the meaning of definition excisable article' under Section 3(4) of the Act all spirit fermented liquor or any alcoholic liquor for human consumption or denatured spirit or denatured spirituous preparation is excisable article and whether the spirit is for human consumption or otherwise it is included in Section 3( ) of the Act. Thus, the case of the non petitioner is that even if -spirit' is unfit for human consumption it will be excisable article. As per the case of the non-petitioners the petitioner company is liable to pay excise duty on the rectified spirit even if it bong imported by therm pur