G. Sankaran, Member (T)

1. The captioned appeal was initially filed as a Revision Application before the Central Government which in terms of Section 131-B of the Customs Act, 1962, has come as transferred proceeding to this Tribunal for disposal as if it were an appeal presented before us.

2. The facts of the case, briefly stated, are that the appellants (hereinafter referred to as IOC for brevity's sake) imported a consignment of 702 drum of the chemical "Monoethylene Glycol (MEG)", weighing 164 970 M.T. at the port of Madras. The carrying ship arrived at the port on 20th March 1979 A Bill of Entry was filed on 28th March, 1979 by M/s. State Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Corporation of India Ltd. (CPC) a/c I.O.C. for clearance of the goods for home consumption. The Customs authorities assessed the goods to basic duty of customs at 60%, auxiliary duty at 15% and additional duty at 8%.

The Central Government, on 16th December 1978, issued ad hoc exemption Order No. 302, in exercise of its powers under Section 25(2) of the Customs Act, 1962 read with Section 35(4) of the Finance Act, 1978 exempting 3.20 tonnes of MEG from so much of that portion of the auxiliary duty of customs le