Per Shri V.P. Gulati: This appeal is against the order of Collector of Customs and Central Excise, Trichy. Under the impugned order Lubricating oil consisting of 1876 packages described as Adnoc oils and ??? valued at Rs 16,35,383/- have been confiscated and allowed to be redeemed on payment of redemption of Rs 7,00,000/-. The appellants have also been imposed a penalty of Rs 1,00,000/- for the reason that the goods imported were covered by canalised list of items under Sl. 157 of the Import and Export Policy 1992-97 and also the goods are covered by the negative list of consumer goods under Sl. 156 of the said policy.

2. Shri Subramanian, the learned Senior Advocate for the appellants pleaded that the goods imported are in packings of 1, 2 and 8 litres and by virtue of this being in packages these have been held to be consumer goods. In this connection he referred us to the communication from the office of the DGTD signed by Deputy Director General Foreign Trade wherein has been clarified that "lubricating oil is freely importable without any restriction relating to licensing etc. except in consumer packs. Import of lubricating oil in consumer pack will require an Import licence.'" The full correspondence leading to the clarification has not been produced before us and the appellants were also asked as to whether they have passed the issue before the adjudicating authority in the context of the items covered by the canalised list which required the import of oils through specified agencies only, the learned Counsel pleaded that this was not done. The learned Counsel however urged that under Sl. No. 157 different canalising agencies have been designated for import of items specified therein and pleaded that in respect of Petrolium products the designated agency is Indian Oil Corporation while in respect of other products, other agencies have been designated as mentioned against sub-heading 5 under Sl. No. 157. He pleaded that other products answering to the description of oil whether edible or non-edible not specifically mentioned above or elsewhere in this policy are canalised through State Trading Corporation and Hindustan Vegetable Oils Corporation Ltd. He pleaded that inasmuch as the petrolium product was not covered by sub-serial No. 5, and Sl. 157 (1) covers specifically petroleum products, it should be presumed that lubricant oils were not canalised and were not covered by sub-heading 5 of Serial No. 157 of the Import Export Policy for the year 1992-97. He pleaded that it could not have been the intention of the licensing authorities that this item should be canalised through State Trading Corporation inasmuch as State Trading Corporation has been designated as an agency for import of edible oils as seen from Sl. No. 3 and 4 of para 157 in the list of canalised items. His plea in regard to the second proposition is that the goods were not consumer goods either. The learned Counsel referred to para 156 of the Policy and also referred to the definition of consumer goods as set out in the policy. He also drew our attention to the description of items covered under para 156 of the Policy which for convenience of reference is reproduced below:

"All consumer goods, howsoever described of industrial, agricultural, mineral or animal origin, whether in SKD/CKD condition or ready to assemble sets or in finished form"

The definition of consumer goods as given in the Policy, under Para 7 is as under:

"Consumer goods means any consumption goods which can directly satisfy human needs without further processing and include consumer durables and accessories, components, parts and spares of such consumer durables"

He pleaded that only such of those items can be taken to fall under this category i.e. consumer goods as are fit for ingestion by human beings as such or are such items as can be split into SKD or CKD condition. His plea is that the lubricant imported by the appellants cannot be ingested and is meant for motor vehicles and als