Harish Chander, Judicial Member

1. Dhrangadhra Chemical Works Ltd. has filed a Revision Application under erstwhile Section 36 of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 to the Additional Secretary, Government of India, Ministry of Finance, New Delhi being aggrieved from order-in-appeal No. 159 of 1981 dated 27.3.1981 passed by the Appellate Collector of Customs and Central Excise. The said Revision Application stands transferred to the Tribunal in terms of the provisions of Section 35P of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 to be disposed of as an appeal.

2. Thereafter the same appellant has filed two more appeals before the Tribunal mentioned as below :-

(i) ED/SB/2324/83-A

(ii) ED/SB/1993/83-A

Since the issue involved is identical in the above appeals, the same are disposed of by this consolidated order.

3. The facts of appeal Nos. 666/81A and 2324/83A are similar. The facts in appeal No. 666/81A are as below :-

The appellants are manufacturing Caustic Soda and within their factory they have a unit for the manufacture of metal containers. They consume captively the metal containers manufactured in their unit in packing caustic soda, solid flakes and Trichloroethylene/perchloroethylene. No sale of metal containers is undertaken by the company. They submitted price lists for metal containers arriving the value on cost accounting . basis but without inclusion of any profit and the same was originally approved by the Superintendent, Tirunelveli Circle and subsequently revised by him on adding margin of profit with the assessable value. This procedure was continued till the formation of a division at Tirunelveli. When the Circle was upgraded as Division in charge of an Assistant Collector, he issued a show cause notice on 10.1.1972 to them to show cause as to why the assessable value on metal containers should not be revised from an earlier date i.e. from 1.3.1970 based on the cost of drums arrived on cost accounting basis plus margin of profit earned by them and accordingly an order was issued fixing the margin of profit as 15.817% against which the assessee went in appeal. The Appellate Collector vide his order dated 13.3.1973 quashed the orders of the Assistant Collector and directed to refix the assessable value in accordance with the provisions of Section 4(b) of Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944. Accordingly the profit of margin was refixed as 15.817% based on the company's annual balance sheet, in the Assistant Collector's order dated 11.4.1977 contending that the profit earned by the company on Caustic Soda is dependent upon both the constituents i.e. the containers and contents and therefore it was not necessary to determine the profit margin on metal containers separately. Further, while arriving at the margin of profit, the interest paid on borrowed capital was not excluded from the total profit earned since the interest paid was out of the profit accrued. The appellants again sought remedy with the Appellate Collector by preferring an appeal against the Assistant Collector's order dated 11.4.1977. The Appellate Collector in his order dated 23.12.1977 directed to determine the margin of profit proportionately deducing it from the margin of profit of caustic soda in the ratio of cost of manufacture of drums to the cost of manufacture of caustic soda as it was not possible to determine the margin of profit separately for metal containers. On the basis of the Appellate Collector's order, the assessable value of the metal container was determined vide order dated 25.4.1979 taking into consideration the method suggested by the Appellate Collector. While doing so, it was noticed that they furnished the statement showing profit of margin yearwise in respect of caustic soda and Tri/per chloroethylene i.e. for the years 69-1976/77 excluding the depreciation and development investment allowance from the profit actually earned. As the above deduction was not allowable under the law, the exclusion of the above charges were not e