G. Sankaran, Member (T)

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

2. The dispute in the present proceedings turns on the correct classification under the Import Customs Tariff Schedule of 1975, of a consignment of "Photo-Sensitive Nylon Printing Plates" imported by the appellants through the Port of Madras. The Customs House assessed the goods to basic Customs duty (the duty leviable with reference to the First Schedule to the Customs Tariff Act) under Heading No. 39.01/07 and to additional (countervailing) duty of Customs with reference to Item No. 15A(2) of the Central Excise Tariff Schedule. The appellants cleared the goods on payment of the duty so assessed. Later on, however, they filed a refund claim before the Assistant Collector contending that the goods were correctly assessable under Heading No. 84.34 of the Customs Tariff Schedule and that no additional duty was leviable since similar goods were not manufactured in India. The Assistant Collector relied upon the examination report and notings on the reverse of the original Bill of Entry to the effect that the goods were found to be plastic sheets and, on this basis, he held that the classification under Heading No. 39.01/07 was in order. He also rejected the claim that the goods did not attract any additional duty on the ground that the imported goods fell under the tariff description in Item No. 15A(2)-CET. The Appellants preferred an appeal against this order. The Appellate Collector of Customs, after observing that the plates in question were specially prepared for printing purposes, accepted the appellants' contention that goods fell for classification under Heading No. 84.34 of the Customs Tariff Schedule and allowed consequential relief to the appellants. However, in so far as the levy of additional duty of Customs was concerned, he held that even though the plates were specially prepared for printing purposes, they would still fall under Item 15A-CET. On this basis, the claim for refund of additional duty was rejected. It is against this order that the appellants filed a Revision Application before the Central Government which has now come to us for disposal as if it were an appeal filed before us.

3. The appeal was heard on 9-12-1983. The appellants were represented by Shri S. Venkataraman and the Respondent by Shri A.S. Sunder Rajan.

4. The learned representative of the appellants made the following submissions :-

(i) At the material time, there was no exact correlation between the entries in the Customs Tariff Schedule and the Central Excise Tariff Schedule relating to artificial or synthetic resins and plastic materials and articles thereof. It was only with the enactment of the Finance Bill, 1982 that complete alignment between the two tariff schedules came to be effected;

(ii) At the material time, sub-item (2) of Item 15A-CET did not directly flow sub-item (1);

(iii) The Assistant Collector went wrong when he upheld the classification of the goods under Heading No. 39.01/07 of the Customs Tariff Schedule; there was and there is no such heading in the Tariff;

(iv) At the relevant time, Item No. 15A(2) referred only to articles made of plastics and the expression "Plastics" as defined to mean the various artificial or synthetic resins or plastic materials or cellulose esters and ethers included in sub-item (1) of the Item 15A. The manufacturer's literature at page 21 of the paper book would show that the sectional structure of the Photo-sensitive Nylon Printing plate comprised of a base film (polyester), an adhesive and anti-halation layer, a layer of photosensitive nylon resin and finally a cover film of polyester. Thus, the printing plates were not entirely made of the materials referred to in 15A(1)-CET but, on the other hand, they were com