A writ petition challenging a show cause notice issued under the Central Excise Act, 1985 is not maintainable as the petitioner has not exhausted the statutory remedies available to it.

The Order of the Court is as follows :-

These writ petitions and W.M.P's. coming on for hearing on Tuesday the 22nd day of June, 1999, upon perusing the petitions and the affidavits filed in support thereof the order of the High Court, dated 13-12-1991 and made herein and the counter affidavit filed herein and the records relevant to the aforesaid prayer comprised in the return of the respondents herein to the writ made by the High Court, and upon hearing the arguments of Mr. N.S. Sivam, Advocate for the petitioner, in all the W.P's and W.M.P's and of Mr. R.M. Kannappa Rajendran, Additional Central Government Standing Counsel on behalf of the respondents in all the W.P's and W.M.P's and having stood over for consideration till this day, the court made the following order :-

In all these writ petitions, since the parties involved and also the subject matter are one and the same, all these writ petitions were taken up together and are disposed of by this common order with the consent of the parties concerned.

2.W.P. Nos. 17458 & 17459/91 have been filed seeking for a writ of Certiorari to call for the records of the respondents and to quash the show cause notice C.No. V3905/15/68/91-Adjn., dated 1-11-1991 (in W.P. No. 17458/91) and C.No. V3912.31/15/67/91-Adjn., dated 30-10-1991 (in W.P. No. 17459/91) issued by the second respondent. W.P. Nos. 17460/91 has been filed seeking for a writ of Declaration to declare the Chapter Note-6 of the Chapter 39 of the Central Excise Tariff Act of 1985 as not valid in law and unconstitutional.

3.In support of the writ petitions, the petitioner herein has filed separate affidavits wherein they have narrated all the facts and circumstances that forced them to file the present writ petitions and requested this court to allow the writ petitions as prayed for. Percontra, on behalf of the respondents a counter affidavit has been filed rebutting all the material allegations levelled against them one after the other and ultimately they have requested this court to dismiss the writ petitions for want of merits.

4.Heard the arguments advanced by the learned Counsel appearing for the parties. I have perused the contents of the affidavits and the counter affidavit together with all other relevant material documents available on record in the form of typed set of papers. I have also taken into consideration the various points raised by the learned Counsel appearing for the parties during the course of their arguments.

5.In the above facts and circumstances of the case, the only point that arises for consideration is, as to whether there are any valid grounds to allow this writ petition or not.

6.The brief facts of the case of the petitioner as seen from the affidavits are as follows: At Tuticorin Mills of the petitioner company, sewing and embroidary threads are manufactured and sold in the market under different trade names. These threads are wound on paper tubes and cones and then sold in the market under different trade names. The paper tubes besides being manufactured by the petitioner company for internal consumption are purchased from other manufacturers also. On job work basis M/s. Devi Paper Tubes, Coimbatore prepare the paper tubes out of the kraft paper, labels and cepol powder supplied by the petitioner company. The paper tubes are manufactured in a continuous mechanical process. The kraft paper of 18 cms width in roll form is fed into cepol powder solution, which has certain special qualities other than normal gums. The cepol gum is uniformly spread over the paper and rolled mechanically. When required diameter is obtained the paper gets cut automatically. Thereafter the 18 cms is cut into 3 pieces and dried. In the dried paper tubes, threads are wound. The cepol solution spreads easily and has better adhesive qualities. More than that it never stains the machines. The cepol powder is like ordinary gum powder or granules. Like the ordinary gum powder or granules made into paste by mixing w