Syiem, Member (T)

1. An appeal was filed on behalf of M/s. Paharpur Cooling Towers Private Ltd. against Order of the Central Board of Excise and Customs, New Delhi, No. 71-B of 1980 dated 25-1-1980. This order of the Board was issued on an appeal against order No. 81/33/72 Collr-49/76 dated 24-4-1976 passed by the Collector of Central Excise, Calcutta. The dispute is in regard to manufacture of goods which the Central Excise Department called electric industrial fans assessable under Central Excise Tariff Item 33(2), and which the factory calls blade assemblies and which it says were not assessable under Tariff Item 33 (2). The appeal was once posted for hearing on 1st November, 1985, but as the counsel for M/s. Paharpur Cooling Towers insisted that he should be allowed to file a large number of additional documents and grounds such as an affidavit by an engineer by the name of Mr. Kundu, the hearing could not be completed and had to be postponed pending a decision on the additional documents. None of the additional documents were necessary nor does the affidavit filed by the engineer give any help in determining the dispute. As a result, much time was wasted on a matter that could have been concluded in one hearing.

2. The dispute was whether a hub with blades called by the manufacturers a blade assembly was an electric fan assessable under Item 33(2). These goods or fans are assembled by M/s. Paharpur Cooling Towers from hubs and blades they purchase in the market; they fix the assembly fan or blade assembly in the cooling tower which they build on contracts with buyers. The fans, when they are removed from M/s. Paharpur Cooling Towers' Factory, have no electric motor or any other kind of driven. The motor power is provided/connected only after they are fixed/installed/ mounted at the site of the cooling towers.

3. The manufacturers claim that blade assemblies are not electric fans because they do not have any electric motor mounted or encased or coupled integrally with the fan blade assemblies to qualify the latter as an electric fan. The blade assemblies are only a number of blades mounted on a common hub made of cast steel, with adjustments provided to vary the pitch of the fan blades as may be required. But as could be seen from the sample produced in court, this assembly has no integral electric motor drive which is necessary for a fan to be classified an electric fan.

4. The Item 33(2) Central Excise Tariff covers electric fans :

Designed for use in an industrial system as parts indispensable for its operation and have been given for that purpose some special shape or quality which would not be essential for any other purpose.

The main topic, of course, is that the manufacturers claim this is not an electric fan. For the purpose of seeing the precise in the drawing of the fan it is significant to note that there are provisions for keys, keys for yoke, key motor shaft or key diesel engine shaft. A key must fit into a keyway or a spline, so that the driven member does not turn relative to the driving member. The appellants do not say that the fans are not driven by electric motors. All they say is that they do not manufacture electric motors, which is a fact. They also say that the blade assemblies can be driven by any other kind of power like integral combustion engine, oil driven engine, steam engine as well as an electric motor. All this is quite true because the drive for the fan is not an internal integral drive but an external power source to which the fan is only required to be coupled or connected. There are various methods of coupling like endless belt, a rigid shaft, or gears; it depends on the type of driving power source available and the method thought most feasible for coupling the fan to the driving source. In the drawing we see an arrangement is made for an electric motor or a diesel engine; in either case we can see from the drawing that the coupling is the same, whether the drive is an electric motor or