1. Delhi Surgical Dressings, a company doing business at Bhagirath Palace, Delhi filed a revision petition under Section 131 of the Customs Act, 1962 before the Central Government, which was transferred to the Tribunal and is being disposed of as an appeal.

2. It transpires from a perusal of the grounds of appeal that the appellant company imported, by means of two Bills of Entry, items which are described as parts of complete haemocytometers, which the party asserts to be medical and diagnostic pathological instruments, The consignments consisted of 'Blood Counting Chambers' and 'pipettes'. The Department, at the time of clearance of the goods, assessed them under Tariff Entry 70.17/18 of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975, treating them to be 'laboratory glassware', whereas party's contention was that these constituted a complete set of haemocytometers and were clearly in the nature of 'medical diagnostic pathological instruments as contemplated by Tariff Entry 90.17/18. However, neither the Assistant Collector nor the Collector of Customs (Appeals), to whom they went up in appeal against the order of the Assistant Collector, accepted their contention and thus feeling aggrieved by the latter's order, namely, that of Collector of Customs (Appeals) dated 24-9-1980, went up in revision to the Government of India, urging that what they had imported by way of 'Blood Counting Chambers' and pipettes were nothing but a complete set of haemocytometers which are traded as diagnostical medical instruments.

3. The Appellants relied on some extracts from medical dictionaries, which they reproduced in the grounds of revision, and also certificates procured from some hospital authorities, and also elucidated their point by reference to technical data relating to these instruments, as contained in a catalogue of a concern of West Germany, namely, 'Albert Sass'. It was contended that this clearly indicates that a gnat deal of perfection and precision goes into the making of these instruments and the lower Customs authorities had erred in treating them as simple glass slides or glass tubes. They thus reiterated their plea that both these items were to be treated as falling under Chapter 90.17/18 of Customs Tariff and that the Department's decision to assess them for customs duty as Laboratory Glassware under Tariff Item No. 70.17/18 was not sustainable.

4. At the time of hearing, Shri B.R. Kumra appearing for the appellants, argued on the same lines and also made reference to technical literature as well as catalogue of the dealer in West Germany from whom he had purchased these items as also of 'Albert Sass' to which a reference was made in the grounds of revision itself. He also presented before the Bench a box containing these two items, namely, the Hood counting chamber and the two tubes-one having a red nozzle and the other a white on-explaining that what he imported was the blood counting chamber, and the tubes - one made for red blood corpuscle and the other for white blood corpuscle, and what the appellant was doing after import was only putting them in one compact set and further explained that these were imported loose in order to save costs of imports because importing them in box-sets would entail higher freight rate and consequential higher expenditure of foreign exchange. He further made reference to one other item which he stated to have purchased from the market which contained only the glass slide in a packed form described as 'Blood Counting Chamber'. This item bearing trade-name 'AO Bright-line' is of some American Company, and it was pointed out by Shri Kumra that this blood counting chamber has been described as "Haemocytometer-for In Vitro Diagnostic use for counting blood cells" and thus sought to draw support from this sample that this blood counting chamber by itself is known in trade parlance as a Haemocytometer, and characterised as being put for "diagnostic use". He thus submitted that his plea for treating both thes